Obesityhttp://www.businessinsider.com/category/obesity
en-usFri, 09 Dec 2016 20:10:24 -0500Fri, 09 Dec 2016 20:10:24 -0500The latest news on Obesity from Business Insiderhttp://static3.businessinsider.com/assets/images/bilogo-250x36-wide-rev.pngBusiness Insiderhttp://www.businessinsider.com
http://www.businessinsider.com/new-sugar-nestle-patent-2016-12The world's largest food company is going after sugar — but it's missing the biggest source of sweets in our dietshttp://www.businessinsider.com/new-sugar-nestle-patent-2016-12
Wed, 07 Dec 2016 09:44:00 -0500Erin Brodwin
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/57f394e69bd978e7018b459f-1536/8689855162_231cb233b9_k.jpg" alt="orange juice breakfast fruit strawberries eating meal" data-mce-source="Flickr/Andy Melton" data-link="https://flic.kr/p/eeTMc1" /></p><p>Too much sugar is <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/which-is-worse-sugar-or-fat">terrible for</a> <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sugar-health-effects-body-brain-2016-9">our health</a>, and <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/which-is-worse-sugar-or-fat">most of us overindulge</a> <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db122.htm#ref6">daily</a>.</p>
<p>There are alternatives, of course &mdash; aspartame-sweetened diet drinks, sucralose-stuffed snacks, stevia-infused protein powders. But not everyone is a fan of fake sugar. Some cringe at the notoriously too-sweet taste; others cite the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/artificial-sweetener-safety-sugar-substitutes-fda-health-2016-03">spotty scientific consensus on its safety</a>.</p>
<p>Enter the international food giant Nestl&eacute;, which <a href="http://www.nestle.com/randd/news/allfeatures/nestle-research-discovery-sugar-reduction">announced last week</a> that it had come up with a way of altering the chemical structure of sugar so that less is needed to provide the same honeyed flavor.</p>
<p>The result, according to the company? Fewer calories, same taste.&nbsp;</p>
<p>"Imagine if your favorite chocolate bar tasted just as good, but with much less sugar," the company <a href="http://www.nestle.com/randd/news/allfeatures/nestle-research-discovery-sugar-reduction">wrote in its release</a>. "This could soon be a reality, thanks to a major breakthrough by Nestl&eacute; scientists."</p>
<p>But while the development sounds promising, it might not be enough to make a measurable difference in our diets. Why?</p>
<h2>Most of the sugar we eat doesn't come from candy</h2>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/574474ae91058424008c49c1-2400" alt="Mars, chocolate, M&amp;Ms, factory tour" data-mce-source="Courtney Verrill" /></p>
<p>If you have a sweet tooth that prefers candy like Smarties, KitKat bars, and chocolate chips, this new product might sound like great news. Less sugar in your candy means you're consuming fewer calories when you indulge.</p>
<p>"It is sugar, but it is assembled differently so it can disassemble easily in your mouth with less going into your gastrointestinal tract," Dr. Stefan Catsicas, Nestl&eacute;'s chief technology officer, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/30/business/nestle-reformulates-sugar-so-it-can-use-less.html?_r=0">recently told The New York Times</a>.&nbsp;</p>
<p>But what if most of the <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/which-is-worse-sugar-or-fat">added sugar in your diet</a> didn't come from candy? What if it came from things like baked goods, snack bars, and soda?</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the latter scenario is the one that most aptly describes the diets of most Americans. According to the <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db122.htm#ref6">latest National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey</a> from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most of the calories that Americans are getting from added sugar come from <a href="https://www.cnpp.usda.gov/sites/default/files/dietary_guidelines_for_americans/PolicyDoc.pdf">sweetened beverages like soda</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db122.htm">processed, "grain-based" desserts</a>&nbsp;like breads and cakes.</p>
<p><strong>Only about 6% of Americans' calories from added sugar come from candy, <a href="https://www.cnpp.usda.gov/sites/default/files/dietary_guidelines_for_americans/PolicyDoc.pdf">according to the US Department of Agriculture and the CDC</a>.</strong></p>
<p>But Nestl&eacute;'s new sugar product, at least as it is currently designed, cannot be mixed into sugary beverages, and the company has not discussed plans to add it to grain-based foods. "It is not something that can be mixed into your coffee" or used to sweeten soda, Catsicas <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/30/business/nestle-reformulates-sugar-so-it-can-use-less.html">told The Times</a>.</p>
<p>The company is trying to patent its new&nbsp;technology and hoping to introduce it as early as 2018, so for now it is not releasing any precise details. But Nestl&eacute; said it planned to use the product to reduce the sugar content of its candy (or "<a href="http://www.nestle.com/brands/chocolateconfectionery">confectionery products</a>," as the company calls it) by <a href="http://www.nestle.com/randd/news/allfeatures/nestle-research-discovery-sugar-reduction">as much as 40%</a>.</p>
<p>That means the new product might not do much for most of us in terms of reducing the sugar in our diets.</p>
<h2>The real best way to cut back on sugar</h2>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/58480bf1ba6eb605688b6d94-2047/undefined" alt="sugary cereal" data-mce-source="J. Annie Wang/Flickr" data-link="https://www.flickr.com/photos/j0annie/15535885191/in/photolist-pERtpv-g2L1kZ-CEF9R-dgnCXc-dgnCVF-eKTrEV-9nzvAY-2SuPJM-raxfG-7w7vBT-ojiHa1-nDJxTK-7F8Go6-dcMEsE-m3Cq9F-dgnCUz-j7dT1C-n1LqCq-5ySNZk-2XNSJZ-6vXBPn-98LFn3-a7CbQB-6e7swe-9ePqPW-bPfLvH-omfNXB-btuYD-o32kp8-dgnCRk-ojd8rX-dgnEXN-dgnEWq-9eLj6t-o6gFCV-o32kwT-aosCKG-kbiQnj-o5Unnp-rd99NW-niKazY-o4ojew-kCAKVz-qcAVsn-kFdBFK-kgYnMP-fauRKx-o5VmwT-khNaqZ-kogEcb" />So what's the best way to cut back on the sugar we eat? Cut back on the foods where most of that sugar comes from, <a href="http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/faculty/Marion_Nestle">Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition and public health at New York University</a> (no ties to Nestl&eacute; the company), told Business Insider.</p>
<p>"The issue with sugar is how much," Nestle said, "so reducing sugar intake from sodas and grain-based desserts is a good idea."</p>
<p>This "grain-based desserts" category includes things like packaged muffins, pastries, and other pre-made items (in the US, many of these are disguised as "breakfast" foods).</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.starbucks.com/menu/food/bakery/bountiful-blueberry-muffin">Starbucks "Bountiful Blueberry Muffin"</a> for example, has 29 grams of sugar and 350 calories. And while soda is notoriously high in sugar, sweetened juices and other beverages (such as everyone's breakfast favorite, orange juice) <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/orange-juice-not-healthy-2016-10">can be equally bad</a>. A 12-ounce glass of orange juice has roughly 150 calories and 27 grams of sugar. That's nearly the same amount of sugar as <a href="http://www.mms.com/us/product/milk">a bag of M&amp;Ms</a>.</p>
<p>So instead of fretting about the occasional piece of chocolate (which is OK in moderation!), you might want to focus on the areas in your diet where most of your added sugar is really coming from.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/which-is-worse-sugar-or-fat" >Fat isn't nearly as bad for you as we thought — and another ingredient is likely worse</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>DON'T MISS:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-american-sugar-industry-convinced-people-fat-was-bad-2016-9" >Why I’m livid — but not surprised — that the US sugar industry funded one of the biggest misconceptions in modern nutrition</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/new-sugar-nestle-patent-2016-12#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-sugar-your-drink-2016-11">This is how much sugar is in your favorite drinks</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/steven-hawking-we-sit-too-much-obesity-how-to-fix-it-2016-12Stephen Hawking was spot-on when he said 'we eat too much and move too little' — but the simplest way to fix it isn't exercisinghttp://www.businessinsider.com/steven-hawking-we-sit-too-much-obesity-how-to-fix-it-2016-12
Fri, 02 Dec 2016 09:13:08 -0500Erin Brodwin
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/583d72adba6eb634008b6870-1000/screen%20shot%202016-11-29%20at%20115733.png" alt="Gen Pep" data-mce-source="gen-pep.se"></p><p></p>
<p>Stephen Hawking delivered a speech this week addressing the seriousness of obesity in an ad campaign for the Swedish nonprofit GEN-PEP.</p>
<p>One of the most powerful parts of the speech, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/steven-hawing-pep-talk-ad-campaign-about-obesity-2016-11">as my colleague Hannah Roberts has pointed out</a>, is perhaps when Hawking says, "For what it's worth, how being sedentary has been a major health problem is beyond my understanding."</p>
<p>"Today too many people die from complications related to overweight and obesity," he said. "We eat too much and move too little."</p>
<p>The solution is "not rocket science," Hawking said. He recommends people simply eat less and be more physically active.</p>
<p>Hawking has the right idea, but it isn't <em>just </em>about being more active. <strong>It's also about being active at the right times.</strong></p>
<p>Most people think that if they have a sedentary office job, so long as they work out regularly they're in the clear. But <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/behindtheheadlines/news/2016-07-28-an-hour-of-exercise-a-day-may-compensate-for-an-office-lifestyle/">research suggests this isn't true</a>.</p>
<p>Instead, it's best to move around for at least a couple of minutes <em>every hour. </em></p>
<p>This could be a 10-minute walk to the coffee shop down the street, a 30-second stroll into the kitchen, or simply <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25931456">standing up</a> and stretching at your desk. (And while standing burns fewer calories per hour than walking, it <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24532996">still burns more</a> than sitting.)</p>
<p>No matter what activity you do, the important thing is that you <a href="http://bjsm.bmj.com/lookup/doi/10.1136/bjsports-2015-094618">break up long periods of sitting</a> with movement. Still, if you're looking to reap the most health benefits in those few frenetic minutes, some activities are better than others.</p>
<h2>Walking is best</h2>
<p>If you're a standing-desk fan, great! Standing still beats sitting, as far as overall health goes. But if awkwardly towering over your coworkers while staring at a screen isn't your thing, there's good news: Walking is superior overall.</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/574ddcd452bcd063018c602b-2400/gettyimages-91787552.jpg" alt="Woman walking through the park in the morning" data-mce-source="Matt Cardy/Getty Images" data-mce-caption="By waking up and throwing the blinds open or stepping outside we activate the body's best alarm clock, the sun."></p>
<p>A large <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25931456">recent study</a>, for example, surveyed thousands of American adults who'd agreed to wear movement trackers. Three years later, the researchers followed up to see how their participants were doing. Some were healthy, some were ill, others had died prematurely.</p>
<p>In terms of this last outcome, the occasional light stroll appeared to have had a slightly protective effect — people who ambled around for roughly two minutes every hour had a 33% lower risk of dying prematurely than the people who'd stayed seated the whole time. (One caveat: Since the study was observational, meaning the researchers had no control over participants' behavior, we can't say for sure that walking <em>reduced</em> the risk of dying, only that the two things are related.)</p>
<p>Plus, when it comes to burning calories — something that's key for weight loss — <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26693809">walking leaves standing in the dust</a>. One recent study, in fact, showed that people who walked, even at a fairly easy pace, burned up to three times as many calories than when they stood or sat.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.adweek.com/agencyspy/stephen-hawking-and-forsman-bodenfors-think-maybe-you-should-get-off-your-lazy-ass/121456">The ad ends</a> with three written statements: "Physical inactivity is now the world's fourth leading cause of death," "required physical activity per day: adults 30 minutes," and "required physical activity per day: children 60 minutes."</p>
<h3>Watch the full ad:</h3>
<p><div>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/A92o9O4FZ7Y" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</div></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/diet-tips-and-habits-to-lose-weight-2016-12" >12 'healthy habits' you're better off giving up</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>DON'T MISS:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/steven-hawing-pep-talk-ad-campaign-about-obesity-2016-11" >Stephen Hawking: 'We eat too much and move too little'</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/steven-hawking-we-sit-too-much-obesity-how-to-fix-it-2016-12#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/best-way-sit-desk-posture-explained-2016-9">You’ve been sitting at your desk all wrong</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/steven-hawing-pep-talk-ad-campaign-about-obesity-2016-11Stephen Hawking: 'We eat too much and move too little'http://www.businessinsider.com/steven-hawing-pep-talk-ad-campaign-about-obesity-2016-11
Tue, 29 Nov 2016 07:30:31 -0500Hannah Roberts
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/583d72adba6eb634008b6870-1000/screen%20shot%202016-11-29%20at%20115733.png" alt="Gen Pep" data-mce-source="gen-pep.se"></p><p></p>
<p>Stephen Hawking has delivered a speech addressing the seriousness of obesity in an ad campaign to promote the work of the Swedish <a href="http://gen-pep.se/stephen-hawking/">nonprofit company GEN-PEP</a>, <a href="http://www.adweek.com/agencyspy/stephen-hawking-and-forsman-bodenfors-think-maybe-you-should-get-off-your-lazy-ass/121456">Adweek first reported Monday</a>.</p>
<p>The most powerful part of the speech (which you can watch in full below) is perhaps when Hawking says: "For what it's worth, how being sedentary has been a major health problem is beyond my understanding."</p>
<p>The professor relates his work as a cosmologist, in which he sees the world "as a whole," to what he describes as "the most serious public health problems of the 21st century."</p>
<p>"Today too many people die from complications related to overweight and obesity," Hawking says in the ad. "We eat too much and move too little."</p>
<p>When talking of the solution, he says, "It's not rocket science," and recommends simply that people eat less and take up more physical activity.</p>
<p>After playing the video of Hawking delivering his speech, the <a href="http://www.adweek.com/agencyspy/stephen-hawking-and-forsman-bodenfors-think-maybe-you-should-get-off-your-lazy-ass/121456">low-budget ad</a> ends with three written statements: "Physical inactivity is now the world's fourth leading cause of death," "Required physical activity per day: Adults 30 minutes," and "Required physical activity per day: Children 60 minutes."</p>
<p><strong>Watch the ad in full here:</strong></p>
<p><div>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/A92o9O4FZ7Y" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</div></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/spotify-global-ad-campaign-signing-off-2016-2016-11" >Spotify says: 'Thanks 2016, it's been weird,' in its largest ad campaign yet</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/steven-hawing-pep-talk-ad-campaign-about-obesity-2016-11#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/dermatologist-best-way-wash-your-face-2016-11">The 3 worst things you do when you wash your face — according to a dermatologist</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/soda-tax-san-francisco-2016-11San Francisco just took a major step against Big Sugarhttp://www.businessinsider.com/soda-tax-san-francisco-2016-11
Wed, 09 Nov 2016 11:32:00 -0500Rafi Letzter and Reuters
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/56b3cbe1dd089564558b46fa-2400/diet-soda-pouring-out-frankieleon-flickr-ccby2.jpg" alt="diet coke soda pouring out frankieleon flickr ccby2" data-mce-source="frankieleon/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)" data-link="https://www.flickr.com/photos/armydre2008/3583339920/" /></p><p>A major US city just fired a big gun in the fight against sugar &mdash;&nbsp;which scientists believe is likely one of the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sugar-health-effects-body-brain-2016-9">most deadly ingredients</a>&nbsp;in the modern human&nbsp;diet.</p>
<p>Voters in San Francisco, California on Tuesday passed a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, according to unofficial results. The measure is part of push by local governments to target soda to stem obesity and diabetes, two <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html">leading causes of early death</a> in America.</p>
<p>Neighboring Albany, California also passed a similar measure, preliminary figures showed, and measures in Oakland, California and Boulder, Colorado, are&nbsp;on track to pass as well, with votes still being counted early on Wednesday.</p>
<p>The levies on <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/big-soda-is-fighting-science-on-sugar-2015-11">sugar-sweetened beverages</a> arrive a month after the World Health Organization recommended that governments introduce these types of taxes in a bid to battle obesity, diabetes and other diet-related diseases.</p>
<p>The San Francisco measure passed 62% to 38% and the Albany measure passed 71%&nbsp;to 29%. With 85% of precincts reporting, the Oakland measure had 62% support to 38% opposed, and in Boulder the soda tax was passing 54% to 46%, with the percent of votes counted unclear.</p>
<p>Efforts to fight sugar consumption by making it harder to sell&nbsp;soda have enjoyed mixed successes in this country. In 2014, former New York City mayor and billionaire Mike Bloomberg's rule to limit the size of sugary drink containers <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/27/nyregion/city-loses-final-appeal-on-limiting-sales-of-large-sodas.html">failed in court</a>. But Philadelphia, in an effort partly funded by Bloomberg, passed a tax in June that now <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/20160617_Philadelphia_City_Council_to_vote_on_soda_tax.html">looks like a bellwether</a>.</p>
<p>Mexico passed&nbsp;one-peso soda tax in 2014 (again, in part with&nbsp;Bloomberg's help) that seems to have <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/study-shows-a-mexican-soda-tax-could-save-18900-lives-2016-11">had some early success as a public health measure</a>, though it's still too early to call.</p>
<p>Coca-Cola Co, PepsiCo Inc., and other companies in the roughly <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/pepsi-coca-cola-coke-fund-health-groups-american-diabetes-foundation-2016-10">$100-billion US soft drink industry are fighting the taxes</a> at a time when soda consumption is falling.</p>
<p>The sugar industry has a history of opposing these kinds of public health efforts. Industry groups funded an effort to&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-american-sugar-industry-convinced-people-fat-was-bad-2016-9">deceive the American public</a> on the dangers of sugar &mdash; while over-hyping the supposed dangers of fat &mdash; that is responsible for one of the biggest misconceptions in nutrition: that fat alone makes you fat.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-popular-uprising-climate-change-fossil-fuels-2016-11" >Elon Musk thinks we need a 'popular uprising' against the fossil fuel industry</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>DON'T MISS:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-american-sugar-industry-convinced-people-fat-was-bad-2016-9" >Why I'm livid — but not surprised — that the US sugar industry funded one of the biggest misconceptions in modern nutrition</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/soda-tax-san-francisco-2016-11#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/seltzer-water-club-soda-tonic-water-different-2016-10">How to never forget the differences between seltzer water, club soda, and tonic water</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/why-added-sugar-is-bad-for-you-worse-than-natural-sugar-2016-11Here's why added sugar is so bad for youhttp://www.businessinsider.com/why-added-sugar-is-bad-for-you-worse-than-natural-sugar-2016-11
Mon, 07 Nov 2016 14:18:43 -0500Rebecca Harrington
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/56a90cfb58c32378008b5a33-2400/fast food sugar-11.jpg" alt="Fast Food Sugar 11" data-mce-source="Hollis Johnson" /></p><p>Since fat became Public Enemy No. 1 in the 1970s, and Americans started abandoning it like the plague, sugar slowly snuck into our food supply to make sure low-fat food still tasted good.</p>
<p>Today, you can find <a href="https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/carbohydrates/added-sugar-in-the-diet/">added sugar</a> lurking in items you'd never expect to be <em>quite</em> that sweet &mdash; from <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/yogurts-with-the-least-sugar-2016-4">yogurts</a> and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/low-calorie-salad-dressings-2016-5">salad dressings</a> to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/snack-cereal-bars-least-sugar-list-2016-4">granola bars</a> and sliced bread.</p>
<p>We now know, however, that <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/should-you-eat-a-low-fat-diet-2016-9">fat isn't nearly as bad</a> as we thought, and <a href="http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2548255">sugar is much, much worse</a>. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sugar-health-effects-body-brain-2016-9">Research has found diets high in sugar are </a><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sugar-health-effects-body-brain-2016-9">associated with</a> an increased risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, among other problems.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/fda-changes-nutrition-labels-2016-5">US Food and Drug Administration is finally requiring food manufacturers include "added sugars"</a> on nutrition labels by July 2018. (Until then, you can tell if a food has added sugars by <a href="http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/HealthyLiving/HealthyEating/Nutrition/Sugar-101_UCM_306024_Article.jsp#.WBoMEuEwj5Z">checking if words like</a> "sugar," "fructose," "sucrose," or "cane juice" are on the ingredients list.)</p>
<p>This <a href="http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocumentsRegulatoryInformation/LabelingNutrition/ucm385663.htm">labeling change</a> means companies will have to track any sugars they add to foods that don't come naturally from the ingredients. So the naturally occurring sugars in yogurt from milk, for example, wouldn't count as "added" sugars, but if manufacturers add sucrose or corn syrup, those additional ingredients would.</p>
<p>Americans get most of the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ultra-processed-foods-american-diets-2016-3">sugar they eat in processed foods</a>, which <a href="http://bmjopen.bmj.com/lookup/doi/10.1136/bmjopen-2015-009892">researchers wrote in a 2016 study</a> were contributing to making us "overfed and undernourished." Usually, these processed foods are low in other important nutrients, like protein and fiber, while they're high in things like sugar. It's why people call them "empty calories."</p>
<p>The US government recommends people only get <a href="http://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015/guidelines/chapter-1/key-recommendations/" rel="nofollow">10%</a> of their calories per day from added sugars (the <a href="http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/HealthyLiving/HealthyEating/Nutrition/Added-Sugars_UCM_305858_Article.jsp#.WBpSxuEwj5Y">American Heart Association is even stricter</a>), but Americans actually get closer to <a href="http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/94/3/726" rel="nofollow">15%</a> of their daily calories from added sugars on average.</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/58209d2e46e27a1b058b5135-1200/daily sugar intake graphic expectations reality.png" alt="daily sugar intake graphic expectations reality" data-mce-source="BI Graphics/Skye Gould" /></p>
<h2>So what's the difference between 'added' and 'natural'?</h2>
<p>Whether a sugar is "added" or "natural," the body processes it the same way. But the difference lies in where those types are usually found, <a href="http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2015/natural-and-added-sugars-two-sides-of-the-same-coin/">Mary E. Gearing writes for Harvard University</a> &mdash; and how your body ends up dealing with them.</p>
<p>Fruits typically have a lot of sugar, but they have fiber, too. Eating fiber allows your body to digest sugar more slowly, so you don't get the devastating crash from a sugar high. Processed foods with added sugars, however, have typically filtered the fiber out, so the sugar will enter your bloodstream more quickly, and you'll likely be hungry again soon.</p>
<p>Molecularly speaking, added sugars are no different from "natural" ones. But cutting added sugars from our diets &mdash; and the foods they're found in &mdash; looks like the best way to reduce our sugar intake and ward off some of the negative health effects they're linked to.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ultra-processed-foods-american-diets-2016-3" >More than half the calories in Americans' diets come from something we probably shouldn't be eating at all</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>DON'T MISS:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sugar-health-effects-body-brain-2016-9" >15 disturbing consequences of eating too much sugar</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-added-sugar-is-bad-for-you-worse-than-natural-sugar-2016-11#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-two-thousand-calories-looks-like-2016-10">What 2,000 calories of your favorite foods looks like may shock you</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/extra-body-weight-could-slow-down-your-brain-2016-11Extra body weight could slow down your brainhttp://www.businessinsider.com/extra-body-weight-could-slow-down-your-brain-2016-11
Tue, 01 Nov 2016 15:50:08 -0400Beth Fontenot
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/5818efb3362ca4b44f8b5e25-2070/sedentary lazy couch potato man.jpg" alt="sedentary lazy couch potato man" data-mce-source="Wikimedia Commons" data-link="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Computadoras_y_Obesidad.jpg" /></p><p></p>
<p>If you're having trouble getting motivated to get up off the couch, eat right and lose the extra pounds, you might want to consider the effect of those extra pounds on your brain. In fact, those pounds may be part of the reason why you are having a hard time motivating yourself to get off the couch in the first place.</p>
<p>Being overweight is linked to a variety of health issues such as <a href="http://www.thedoctorwillseeyounow.com/content/aging/art4475.html" target="_blank">heart disease</a>, diabetes, hypertension and some cancers. But a high body mass index (BMI) can also be harmful to your brain.</p>
<p>"The higher your BMI, the more your inflammation goes up. Prior research has found that inflammation &mdash; particularly in the brain &mdash; can negatively impact brain function and cognition," said Kyle Bourassa, lead author of the study, in a statement. Cognition is a person's ability to think, understand, reason, learn and remember.</p>
<p>Twelve years' worth of data on the physical, social, and economic aspects of people over age 50 from the English Longitudinal Study of Aging were analyzed by University of Arizona researchers. They found that a person's BMI affects both brain function and cognition, with inflammation as the likely cause.</p>
<p>When Bourassa and his co-author, psychology professor David Sbarra, looked at two different groups of people in the English study, they noted that both groups of <a href="http://www.thedoctorwillseeyounow.com/content/aging/art3590.html" target="_blank">aging adults</a>with higher BMIs experienced greater changes in C-reactive protein levels over time which predicted changes in cognition.</p>
<p>C-reactive protein is a substance produced in the liver that rises as inflammation increases in the body. It is considered a marker of systemic inflammation in the body.</p>
<p>The study results only prove that there is an association between high BMI and cognitive decline, and does not prove that being overweight causes problems with cognition. To further connect the dots, more studies need to be done that look at the effects on inflammation and cognition when <a href="http://www.thedoctorwillseeyounow.com/content/dieting/art4465.html" target="_blank">BMI is reduced</a>.</p>
<p>Even among healthy older adults, some <a href="http://www.thedoctorwillseeyounow.com/content/aging/art3717.html" target="_blank">decline in cognitive function</a> is normal, but the impact on a person's quality of life can be frustrating and concerning. This type of research could lead to new areas of research and possible treatments.</p>
<p>Keeping your BMI in the healthy range is good for your overall health. BMI is a measure of body fat based on a person's height and weight. You can determine your BMI <a href="http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmicalc.htm" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0889159116304329" target="_blank">study </a>is published in Brain, Behavior and Immunity.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/fasting-mimicking-diet-cure-disease-aging-2016-9" >Fasting could prevent aging and transform your body, but it goes against everything we think of as healthy</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/extra-body-weight-could-slow-down-your-brain-2016-11#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/insectothopter-cia-dragonfly-spy-drone-military-defense-espionage-spies-2016-12">In the 1970s the CIA created a spy drone the size of a dragonfly</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/angus-barbieri-382-days-without-food-scotsman-fasting-starvation-obesity-2016-10A 27-year-old who weighed 456 pounds survived without any food for 382 dayshttp://www.businessinsider.com/angus-barbieri-382-days-without-food-scotsman-fasting-starvation-obesity-2016-10
Sat, 22 Oct 2016 11:00:00 -0400Kevin Loria
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/580525e9c5240225008b4de3-1616/shutterstock_94306177.jpg" alt="scotland hills hike" data-mce-source="David Redondo/Shutterstock" /></p><p></p>
<p>Most people can survive without food for at least a few weeks, maybe a bit longer. Eventually, however, starvation kills.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/fasting-mimicking-diet-cure-disease-aging-2016-9">Yet&nbsp;the limits on how long people can go without eating are complicated</a>; without water people are <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-can-the-average/">unlikely to last a week</a>,&nbsp;but the amount of time starvation takes can vary drastically.</p>
<p>Take the story of Angus Barbieri. For 382 days, ending July 11, 1966, the then-27-year-old Scotsman ate nothing.</p>
<p>There's limited documentation of Barbieri's fast: there are a few <a href="http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1966/07/12/page/5/article/scot-eats-his-1-st-solid-food-in-392-days">old newspaper stories</a> recounting his ordeal and more convincingly, there's a case report describing the experience that <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2495396/pdf/postmedj00315-0056.pdf">his doctors published</a> in the Postgraduate Medical Journal in 1973.</p>
<p>According to that report, Barbieri had walked into the University Department of Medicine at the Royal Infirmary of Dundee, Scotland, more than a year before, looking for help. He was "grossly obese" at the time, according to his doctors, weighing 456 pounds. The doctors put him on a short fast, thinking it would help him lose some weight, though they didn't expect him to keep it off.&nbsp;</p>
<p>But as days without food turned into weeks, Barbieri felt eager to continue the program. Absurd and risky as his goal sounded &mdash; fasts over 40 days were <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/fasting-mimicking-diet-cure-disease-aging-2016-9">and still are</a> considered dangerous &mdash; he wanted to reach his "ideal weight," 180 pounds. So he kept going.</p>
<p>In what was a surprise to his doctors, he lived his daily life mostly from home during the fast, coming into the hospital for frequent checkups and overnight stays. Regular blood-sugar tests &mdash; intended to demonstrate that he was somehow able to function while very hypoglycemic &mdash; assured doctors that he really wasn't eating. Weeks turned into months.</p>
<p>Barbieri took vitamins on various occasions throughout the fast, including potassium and sodium supplements. He was allowed to drink coffee, tea, and sparkling water, all of which are naturally calorie-free. He said there was the occasional time that he'd have a touch of sugar or milk in tea, especially in his final few weeks of fasting.</p>
<p>At the end of his ordeal, Barbieri tipped the scales at 180. Five years later, he'd still kept almost all the weight he'd lost off, weighing in at 196.</p>
<h2>The limits of the human body</h2>
<p>The Scotsman's fast is perhaps the most extreme example of a starvation diet ever recorded. (At least one person has reportedly even gone longer without food than Barbieri; a man named Dennis Galer Goodwin <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3081604.stm">lasted 385 days on a hunger strike</a> to assert his innocence of a rape charge before he was force-fed through a tube.)</p>
<p>But Barbieri's extreme regimen is not the only fast for health of eye-popping duration. In 1964, researchers published a study noting that "prolonged starvation" could be an effective treatment for severe obesity, <a href="http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1161598">with at least one patient fasting</a> for 117 days. For medical reasons, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2495396/pdf/postmedj00315-0056.pdf">several others have exceeded</a> the 200-day fasting mark, though there has been at least one death during the refeeding period for one of those patients.</p>
<p>In a sense, these stories show the body's remarkable ability to (in a few rare cases) survive off of its own fat stores, provided those stores are excessive enough in the first place. Still, make no mistake, these types of extreme diets can be deadly. No one can survive without energy, which comes from food and can come from fat stores, though only for a period of time.</p>
<p>While "starvation" as a treatment enjoyed some popularity in the 1960s and 70s, <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-can-a-person-sur/">doctors abandoned this strategy</a> because it was likely to kill patients. After a certain period of time the body burns through fat and muscle, eventually causing physical changes that drastically increase the chance of a fatal heart attack. Even low-calorie diets that provide insufficient nutrition have killed, with autopsy reports showing the characteristic signs of starvation.</p>
<p>But as Barbieri shows, the question of how long people can live without food is a complicated one.</p>
<p>Before his first meal after the fast, he claimed to have forgotten the taste of food. For breakfast on that July morning, he then ate a boiled egg, a slice of bread with butter, and a cup of black coffee.</p>
<p>According to a report <a href="http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1966/07/12/page/5/article/scot-eats-his-1-st-solid-food-in-392-days">published in the Chicago Tribune</a>, the next day he told a reporter, "I thoroly [sic] enjoyed my egg and I feel very full."</p>
<p><em><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/fasting-mimicking-diet-cure-disease-aging-2016-9">For more on this story and for an in-depth look at the wild science of fasting, check out our feature investigating&nbsp;the practice.</a></em></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/fasting-mimicking-diet-cure-disease-aging-2016-9" >Fasting could prevent aging and transform your body, but it goes against everything we think of as healthy</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/angus-barbieri-382-days-without-food-scotsman-fasting-starvation-obesity-2016-10#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/animated-scale-universe-atom-human-earth-galaxy-polaris-2016-11">This 3-minute animation will change the way you see the universe</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/the-price-of-digital-health-devices-is-widening-the-health-gap-2016-10The price of digital health devices is widening the health gaphttp://www.businessinsider.com/the-price-of-digital-health-devices-is-widening-the-health-gap-2016-10
Tue, 18 Oct 2016 21:13:25 -0400Quianta Moore and Rebecca Richards-Kortum
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/58068e2a8d83b437008b538b-911/doctors read someone's blood pressure.jpg" alt="Doctors read someone's blood pressure" data-mce-source="Joe Raedle/Getty Images" /></p><p></p>
<p>Chronic conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases account for more than&nbsp;<a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/lcwk9_2014.pdf">85 percent </a>of all deaths in the United States.&nbsp;</p>
<p><a href="http://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/pdf/2009-power-of-prevention.pdf">Obesity and asthma</a>&nbsp;in particular are among the leading causes of preventable deaths in the United States and constitute a large portion of health care expenditures. Type 2 diabetes costs alone&nbsp;<a href="http://www.diabetes.org/advocacy/news-events/cost-of-diabetes.html">exceeded US$245 billion</a>&nbsp;in 2012.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Despite many medical advancements over the past decade, there is a growing recognition that disease prevention and better disease management are critical to reducing preventable deaths and&nbsp;<a href="http://www.lse.ac.uk/LSEHealthAndSocialCare/pdf/eurohealth/VOL15No1/Thorpe.pdf">containing rising health care costs</a>.</p>
<p>The private sector has begun to develop&nbsp;<a href="http://www.healthcare-informatics.com/news-item/report-digital-health-market-poised-continued-growth">tools to improve</a>&nbsp;chronic disease management with digital health technologies, and that<a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/387867/value-of-worldwide-digital-health-market-forecast-by-segment/"> market is growing rapidly</a>. These technologies, such as activity trackers and blood pressure and glucose monitors, empower patients with the necessary information to better manage their conditions.</p>
<p>The&nbsp;<a href="http://www.commonwealthfund.org/about-us">Commonwealth Fund</a>, a private foundation that aims to promote a high-performing health care system, has reported that&nbsp;<a href="http://www.commonwealthfund.org/%7E/media/files/publications/fund-report/2014/oct/1776_klein_vision_using_digital_hlt_tech_v2.pdf">digital health technologies</a>&nbsp;can improve health outcomes by increasing patient engagement in self-care, closing communication gaps, identifying and tailoring services to meet the needs of patients and improving decision-making by consumers and providers.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Yet, these touted benefits can be realized only if those with chronic conditions have access to the technologies aimed at helping them. There is a&nbsp;<a href="http://www.gdahc.org/sites/default/files/Bridging_the_Digital_Divide_in_Health_Care_The_Role_of_HIT_in_Addressing_Racial_and_Ethnic_Disparities.pdf">gap</a>&nbsp;between those who would receive the greatest benefit from using digital health technologies and those who actually have access to them.</p>
<p>This device gap results in a health gap: People who have access to digital health technologies have an opportunity to better manage their disease, leading to better health outcomes. For instance, low-income populations are most at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1447113/">risk for diabetic complications</a>. Yet, they likely cannot afford the technologies aimed at improving blood sugar control, which widens the health gap between diabetic complications of the poor and those who are financially stable.</p>
<p>Patient populations with the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/alfresco/publication-pdfs/2000178-How-are-Income-and-Wealth-Linked-to-Health-and-Longevity.pdf">worst health outcomes</a>&nbsp;are often those who face challenges with self-care, such as remembering their medications and communicating with health care providers. Digital health technologies provide a way to empower these patients with the information they need to improve self-care, more effectively communicate with their doctor and track disease progress.&nbsp;</p>
<p><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/533080cc6bb3f724120e24c9-1438/screen shot 2014-03-24 at 11.59.39 am.png" alt="ihealth blood pressure sensor iphone" data-mce-source="YouTube" data-link="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TPTfCwC3DU" /></p>
<p>As public health researchers who study health disparities, we wanted to explore the ways that a device divide may be affecting the poor. We found that everything from product design to costs are contributing to a growing health divide. We need to know the extent of the divide so that we can learn how to narrow the gap.&nbsp;</p>
<h2>Money, confusion with tech devices are problems</h2>
<p>The cost of health technologies can be an impediment to access. Devices such as activity trackers, smart phone blood pressure monitors and glucometers and other e-health devices often&nbsp;<a href="http://www.bakerinstitute.org/research/us-health-care-technologies/">retail for $50 or more</a>. Low-income patients may not be able to afford these devices. Many are not covered by insurance, even though studies have shown that the&nbsp;<a href="http://newsroom.heart.org/news/home-blood-pressure-monitoring-kits-save-insurance-companies-money">devices actually save money</a>.</p>
<p>Income is correlated with&nbsp;<a href="http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2014/10/30/povertys-association-with-poor-health-outcomes-and-health-disparities/">poorer health outcomes</a>. For chronic diseases, such as obesity and diabetes, the poor share a&nbsp;<a href="http://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/alfresco/publication-pdfs/2000178-How-are-Income-and-Wealth-Linked-to-Health-and-Longevity.pdf">disproportionate disease burden</a>. Therefore, technologies such as smartphone glucometer and blood pressure monitors, which are designed to overcome some of the barriers to improved disease management, are unavailable to the population most affected by the disease.</p>
<p>In addition to expense, many devices on the market are not user-friendly. For example, the majority of blood glucose monitors require a computer connection in order to send information to a health care provider. Due to the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.pharmaceutical-journal.com/learning/learning-article/glucose-meters-what-you-should-know/11110106.article">complexities of electronic communication</a>, many patients may forgo sending data to their health care provider, which prevents the patient from receiving the health benefits from the device.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Additionally, patients with multiple chronic conditions &ndash; the group that might benefit most from wearable technologies &ndash;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.jmir.org/2015/8/e202/">adopt digital health technologies at a low</a>&nbsp;rate. This may be due to the time required to input data, or because tracking data causes patients to feel depressed and scared, which is compounded by the belief that their physicians don&rsquo;t trust the data submitted.</p>
<h2>New devices need a new direction</h2>
<p>Product developers must recognize that patients don&rsquo;t have unlimited enthusiasm, resources and time to track data. Also, the data need to be in an usable format for physicians and other health care providers. Ultimately, stakeholders such as patients and health care providers should be involved in the development process. Working with stakeholders to develop tailored devices at a low cost could aid in better chronic disease management in patients who need it most, which would reduce the digital health divide.</p>
<p><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/577282444321f1e2008b474b-2400/diabetes.jpg" alt="diabetes" data-mce-source="Beawiharta Beawiharta/Reuters" data-mce-caption="A paramedic checking the blood sugar levels of a diabetes patient." data-link="http://pictures.reuters.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&amp;VBID=2C0BXZEAK7K7K" /></p>
<p>Additionally, technologies that focus on changing health behavior are critical. Developers could integrate motivational interviewing and data collection to help patients set goals, monitor progress and cope with negative feelings.&nbsp;</p>
<p>For example, devices could incorporate tools to support digital learning opportunities and to highlight connections between behavior change and disease outcomes (e.g., between diet, exercise and blood sugar levels). They also could involve social media support mechanisms. Innovative designs to support positive feelings will encourage patients to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.jmir.org/2015/8/e202/">continue use of devices</a>.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The impact of chronic disease in the United States extends beyond the health of the affected individuals: It contributes to the exorbitant costs we pay as a nation for health care.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The most effective way to reduce the prevalence of chronic disease, and ultimately our health care spending, is through an investment in chronic disease prevention.<a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/387867/value-of-worldwide-digital-health-market-forecast-by-segment/"> Digital health is rising exponentially</a>&nbsp;in the U.S., but most of the available technologies are not designed with and for the users who could benefit most &ndash; the most vulnerable of society. Yet, the burden is not on tech companies alone. More research is needed to understand how to best present data in ways that lead to desirable behavior changes.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Insurers can play a role in increasing access to digital health through coverage of evidence-based technologies, provider reimbursements for reviewing health data and creating a policy scheme that both supports development and yet appropriately monitors patient risk, cost and purported health benefits.</p>
<p>Digital health is here to stay. We just need to employ strategies to ensure digital health technologies are user-friendly and accessible to those who need them the most.</p>
<script async="async" data-counter="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/63380/count" id="theconversation_tracker_hook" src="https://theconversation.com/javascripts/lib/content_tracker_hook.js" type="text/javascript"></script><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-price-of-digital-health-devices-is-widening-the-health-gap-2016-10#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-spot-massive-hole-sun-coronal-hole-video-2016-12">NASA just spotted a massive hole growing on the sun — here’s what it means</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/angus-barbieri-382-days-without-food-scotsman-fasting-starvation-obesity-2016-10A 27-year-old who weighed 456 pounds survived without any food for 382 dayshttp://www.businessinsider.com/angus-barbieri-382-days-without-food-scotsman-fasting-starvation-obesity-2016-10
Tue, 18 Oct 2016 09:55:00 -0400Kevin Loria
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/580525e9c5240225008b4de3-1616/shutterstock_94306177.jpg" alt="scotland hills hike" data-mce-source="David Redondo/Shutterstock" /></p><p></p>
<p>Most people can survive without food for at least a few weeks, maybe a bit longer. Eventually, however, starvation kills.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/fasting-mimicking-diet-cure-disease-aging-2016-9">Yet&nbsp;the limits on how long people can go without eating are complicated</a>; without water people are <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-can-the-average/">unlikely to last a week</a>,&nbsp;but the amount of time starvation takes can vary drastically.</p>
<p>Take the story of Angus Barbieri. For 382 days, ending July 11, 1966, the then-27-year-old Scotsman ate nothing.</p>
<p>There's limited documentation of Barbieri's fast: there are a few <a href="http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1966/07/12/page/5/article/scot-eats-his-1-st-solid-food-in-392-days">old newspaper stories</a> recounting his ordeal and more convincingly, there's a case report describing the experience that <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2495396/pdf/postmedj00315-0056.pdf">his doctors published</a> in the Postgraduate Medical Journal in 1973.</p>
<p>According to that report, Barbieri had walked into the University Department of Medicine at the Royal Infirmary of Dundee, Scotland, more than a year before, looking for help. He was "grossly obese" at the time, according to his doctors, weighing 456 pounds. The doctors put him on a short fast, thinking it would help him lose some weight, though they didn't expect him to keep it off.&nbsp;</p>
<p>But as days without food turned into weeks, Barbieri felt eager to continue the program. Absurd and risky as his goal sounded &mdash; fasts over 40 days were <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/fasting-mimicking-diet-cure-disease-aging-2016-9">and still are</a> considered dangerous &mdash; he wanted to reach his "ideal weight," 180 pounds. So he kept going.</p>
<p>In what was a surprise to his doctors, he lived his daily life mostly from home during the fast, coming into the hospital for frequent checkups and overnight stays. Regular blood-sugar tests &mdash; intended to demonstrate that he was somehow able to function while very hypoglycemic &mdash; assured doctors that he really wasn't eating. Weeks turned into months.</p>
<p>Barbieri took vitamins on various occasions throughout the fast, including potassium and sodium supplements. He was allowed to drink coffee, tea, and sparkling water, all of which are naturally calorie-free. He said there was the occasional time that he'd have a touch of sugar or milk in tea, especially in his final few weeks of fasting.</p>
<p>At the end of his ordeal, Barbieri tipped the scales at 180. Five years later, he'd still kept almost all the weight he'd lost off, weighing in at 196.</p>
<h2>The limits of the human body</h2>
<p>The Scotsman's fast is perhaps the most extreme example of a starvation diet ever recorded. (At least one person has reportedly even gone longer without food than Barbieri; a man named Dennis Galer Goodwin <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3081604.stm">lasted 385 days on a hunger strike</a> to assert his innocence of a rape charge before he was force-fed through a tube.)</p>
<p>But Barbieri's extreme regimen is not the only fast for health of eye-popping duration. In 1964, researchers published a study noting that "prolonged starvation" could be an effective treatment for severe obesity, <a href="http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1161598">with at least one patient fasting</a> for 117 days. For medical reasons, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2495396/pdf/postmedj00315-0056.pdf">several others have exceeded</a> the 200-day fasting mark, though there has been at least one death during the refeeding period for one of those patients.</p>
<p>In a sense, these stories show the body's remarkable ability to (in a few rare cases) survive off of its own fat stores, provided those stores are excessive enough in the first place. Still, make no mistake, these types of extreme diets can be deadly. No one can survive without energy, which comes from food and can come from fat stores, though only for a period of time.</p>
<p>While "starvation" as a treatment enjoyed some popularity in the 1960s and 70s, <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-can-a-person-sur/">doctors abandoned this strategy</a> because it was likely to kill patients. After a certain period of time the body burns through fat and muscle, eventually causing physical changes that drastically increase the chance of a fatal heart attack. Even low-calorie diets that provide insufficient nutrition have killed, with autopsy reports showing the characteristic signs of starvation.</p>
<p>But as Barbieri shows, the question of how long people can live without food is a complicated one.</p>
<p>Before his first meal after the fast, he claimed to have forgotten the taste of food. For breakfast on that July morning, he then ate a boiled egg, a slice of bread with butter, and a cup of black coffee.</p>
<p>According to a report <a href="http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1966/07/12/page/5/article/scot-eats-his-1-st-solid-food-in-392-days">published in the Chicago Tribune</a>, the next day he told a reporter, "I thoroly [sic] enjoyed my egg and I feel very full."</p>
<p><em><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/fasting-mimicking-diet-cure-disease-aging-2016-9">For more on this story and for an in-depth look at the wild science of fasting, check out our feature investigating&nbsp;the practice.</a></em></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/fasting-mimicking-diet-cure-disease-aging-2016-9" >Fasting could prevent aging and transform your body, but it goes against everything we think of as healthy</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/angus-barbieri-382-days-without-food-scotsman-fasting-starvation-obesity-2016-10#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/fruits-vegetables-ancestors-science-evolution-history-2016-11">Here's what fruits and vegetables looked like before we domesticated them</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-portugal-to-levy-sugar-tax-on-soft-drinks-2016-10Portugal is placing a sugar tax on soft drinkshttp://www.businessinsider.com/afp-portugal-to-levy-sugar-tax-on-soft-drinks-2016-10
Sat, 15 Oct 2016 04:40:00 -0400
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/56424a9ddd0895d91c8b46ad-2400/shutterstock_151504187.jpg" alt="Coca-cola soda diet coke" data-mce-source="Shutterstock" /></p><p>Lisbon (AFP) - Portugal's Socialist government will introduce a sugar tax on soft drinks in 2017 which is expected to raise 80 million euros ($88 million) for the nation's public health service, a budget bill presented Friday showed.</p>
<p>The announcement comes just three days after the World Health Organization urged countries to start taxing sugary drinks, pointing to evidence that price hikes can dramatically reduce consumption.</p>
<p>Under Portugal's plans, drinks with a sugar content above 80 grammes per litre will be slapped with a tax of 16.46 euros per hectolitre.</p>
<p>Drinks with less than 80 grammes of sugar per litre will pay a tax of 8.22 euros per hectolitre.</p>
<p>The tax will raise the price of a standard 330 millilitre can of Coca-Cola, which contains 35 grammes of sugar, by 5.5 euro cents.</p>
<p>The new tax will only apply to soft drinks. Sugary drinks based on milk or fruit juice will be spared.</p>
<p>The previous centre-right government, in power until November 2015, considered introducing a sugar tax on drinks and foods that contained too much sugar or salt but dropped the idea.</p>
<p>Only a handful of other countries, such as France, Mexico and South Africa, have introduced a sugar tax.</p>
<p>British Prime Minister Theresa May in August released proposals for such a tax as part of her Conservative government's strategy to combat childhood obesity.</p>
<p>The Socialists came to power in Portugal last year after they teamed up with the Communists and the far-left Left Block to oust the centre-right administration.</p>
<p>The small leftist parties did not formally join the new government, but Prime Minister Antonio Costa relies on them for a majority in parliament to pass legislation -- an unprecedented political arrangement in 40 years of Portuguese democracy.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-portugal-to-levy-sugar-tax-on-soft-drinks-2016-10#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/us-kids-are-some-of-the-least-fit-in-the-world-2016-10US kids are some of the least fit in the worldhttp://www.businessinsider.com/us-kids-are-some-of-the-least-fit-in-the-world-2016-10
Thu, 13 Oct 2016 19:01:00 -0400Grant Tomkinson
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/57ffde1752dd7340018b4b28-2400/shutterstock_149150849.jpg" alt="shutterstock_149150849" data-mce-source="Shutterstock" data-mce-caption="Three kids play on the playground." /></p><p></p>
<p>While the U.S. brings home more Olympic gold than any other country, many, if not most, American school kids wouldn&rsquo;t even bring home a tin, if there were such a low-ranking medal.</p>
<p>Recently, colleagues and I set out to see how the fitness of American kids stacked up relative to other countries. Our findings were surprising. Not only did the U.S. finish at the back of the pack, but U.S. kids ranked behind much smaller and some poorer countries, such as Iceland, Chile and Suriname.</p>
<p>Fitness level is an important indicator of sporting success, but it&rsquo;s also <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18043605">important for your health</a>. You can be fit in different ways &ndash; you can be strong like a weightlifter, run fast like a sprinter, be flexible like a gymnast or be skillful like a tennis player.</p>
<p>However, not all of these types of fitness relate well to your health. The most important type of fitness for good health is <a href="http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/in-depth/aerobic-exercise/art-20045541?pg=2">&ldquo;aerobic&rdquo; fitness</a>, which is your ability to exercise vigorously for a long time, like running laps around an oval or biking around the neighborhood.</p>
<p>If you are generally unfit now, you are more likely to <a href="http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1108396">develop or die</a> from conditions like heart disease, diabetes and some cancers later in life.</p>
<p>One study, using data from Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study which followed over 53,000 men and women, showed that low aerobic fitness was the <a href="http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/43/1/1.extract">strongest predictor of death</a>. It was far greater than any other risk factor &ndash; with the exception of hypertension in men &ndash; and was greater than the combined deaths due to obesity, smoking and diabetes.</p>
<p>Recent evidence also shows that your fitness level as a child is strongly linked to your future health. Two studies, one that <a href="http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2015/12/20/ije.dyv321">followed 1.3 million 18-year-old Swedish boys</a> for 29 years, and another that <a href="http://journals.lww.com/epidem/Citation/2009/05000/Physical_Fitness_During_Adolescence_and_Adult.27.aspx">followed 510 16-year-old Japanese girls for 64 years</a>, found that children with low fitness levels were more likely to die prematurely from any cause later in life.</p>
<p>This highlights the importance of measuring aerobic fitness when trying to understand the health and well-being of children and youth.</p>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/57ffded5da177dd72c8b483f-2400/shutterstock_144463879.jpg" alt="shutterstock_144463879" data-mce-source="Shutterstock" data-mce-caption="Children wait to start a race." /></p>
<h2>Who are the fittest?</h2>
<p>We published a<a href="http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2016/09/20/bjsports-2016-096224.short?rss=1"> study</a> in the British Journal of Sports Medicine that compared the aerobic fitness levels of over 1.1 million kids aged 9 to 17 years from 50 countries who were measured using the 20 meter shuttle run, also called the &ldquo;beep&rdquo; test. We systematically analyzed data from 177 studies across the globe.</p>
<p>The beep test is the world&rsquo;s most popular field test of aerobic fitness for children and youth. It is a progressive exercise test involving continuous running between two lines 20 meters (66 feet) apart in time to recorded beeps. The time between beeps gets progressively shorter and the test is over when you can no longer run the distance in the time with the beeps.</p>
<p>Our study showed that the fittest kids were from Africa and Central-Northern Europe, while least fit were from South America.</p>
<p>America finished at the back of the pack, ranked 47th out of 50, well behind the fittest from Tanzania, Iceland and Estonia and only just in front of the least fit from Mexico, Peru and Latvia. The typical 12-year-old American would run about 520 meters (1706 feet or 26 laps lasting 3.5 minutes) on the shuttle run before stopping, falling some 840 meters (2756 feet or 42 laps) behind the typical 12-year-old from Tanzania.</p>
<p>Our northern neighbor Canada, on the other hand, fared moderately well, placing just above the middle of the pack in 19th place.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2016/05/20/bjsports-2016-095987.abstract">separate analysis</a> of these 1.1 million kids from 50 countries revealed that a higher proportion of boys (43-94 percent) had &ldquo;healthy&rdquo; aerobic fitness &ndash; the fitness level associated with better cardio-metabolic health &ndash; than girls (21-91 percent), with the proportion of kids with healthy fitness declining with age.</p>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/57ffdf4a52dd73f1068b4b16-2400/shutterstock_241400200.jpg" alt="shutterstock_241400200" data-mce-source="Shutterstock" data-mce-caption="People order Kentucky Fried Chicken in a fast-food restaurant." /></p>
<h2>What&rsquo;s causing the gap?</h2>
<p>The reasons for the poor showing of the U.S. might surprise you.</p>
<p>We explored links between aerobic fitness and broad socioeconomic and demographic factors in each country including wealth inequality, standard of living, childhood obesity, physical activity levels and climate.</p>
<p>Wealth inequality &ndash; the gap between rich and poor as measured by the <a href="http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI">Gini Index</a> &ndash; was the strongest correlate of a country&rsquo;s fitness ranking. In other words, countries with a big gap between rich and poor tended to have low fitness levels.</p>
<p>This could be because countries with a <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15700763.2011.577928">big gap between rich and poor </a>tend to have large subpopulations of poor individuals. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25659283">Poverty is linked to bad social and health outcomes</a> &ndash; one of which being lower aerobic fitness levels &ndash; including lower physical activity levels, higher levels of fat, lower life expectancy, increased risk of cardiovascular and other diseases, impairment of children&rsquo;s growth and social disintegration.</p>
<p>This finding suggests that initiatives to reduce the gap between rich and poor, such as progressive taxation regimes, salary regulation or income redistribution, might be suitable population approaches to increase fitness.</p>
<h2>What can you do to improve your &ndash; and your kids&rsquo; &ndash; aerobic fitness?</h2>
<p>Forming good fitness habits is important, but it&rsquo;s also fun. Try joining a sporting club, go swimming at the beach regularly with friends or play basketball at the local playground after school. Keep each other inspired to keep exercising.</p>
<p>For real improvement in your aerobic fitness, the Office for Disease Prevention and Health Promotion recommends you do <a href="https://health.gov/paguidelines/guidelines/adults.aspx">at least 150 minutes weekly</a>, and your kids <a href="https://health.gov/paguidelines/guidelines/children.aspx">at least 60 minutes daily,</a> of moderate to vigorous exercise that uses the big muscles of the body. This includes exercises like running, biking or swimming, or playing sports like basketball, soccer or hockey.</p>
<p>Even better, an additional 20 minutes of the more vigorous &ldquo;huff and puff&rdquo; exercise will put you on the right path to developing the fitness habits that will keep you healthy now and into the future. One method, called <a href="http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/in-depth/interval-training/art-20044588">interval training</a>, involves exercising as hard as you can for a few minutes, then having a few minutes rest, and repeating a few more times. It&rsquo;s not easy, and you&rsquo;ll need to work up to it. Your kids will probably beat you, and, chances are they will enjoy it!</p>
<p>Also, why don&rsquo;t you throw a little low-tech in with your high-tech and try &ldquo;snacking&rdquo; on exercise throughout the day until you build up the fitness and confidence to reach the recommended target? Remember to choose a range of &ldquo;huff and puff&rdquo; activities you like or think you might like to try, and get moving now toward a healthier you and healthier kids, too.</p>
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://theconversation.com/javascripts/lib/content_tracker_hook.js" id="theconversation_tracker_hook" data-counter="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/66453/count?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced" async="async"></script><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/fasting-mimicking-diet-cure-disease-aging-2016-9" >Fasting could prevent aging and transform your body, but it goes against everything we think of as healthy</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/us-kids-are-some-of-the-least-fit-in-the-world-2016-10#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/air-force-plane-drops-armored-humvees-5000-feet-2016-11">Watch the Air Force drop 8 armored Humvees out of a plane from 5,000 feet</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/pepsi-coca-cola-coke-fund-health-groups-american-diabetes-foundation-2016-10A fiery new report makes a convincing case that Big Soda is the new Big Tobaccohttp://www.businessinsider.com/pepsi-coca-cola-coke-fund-health-groups-american-diabetes-foundation-2016-10
Mon, 10 Oct 2016 09:00:00 -0400Erin Brodwin
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/56460080112314a3028b4d70-857/148084594.jpg" alt="big gulp nyc soda ban" data-mce-source="Getty Images/Spencer Platt"></p><p>From 2011 to 2015, PepsiCo and the Coca-Cola company gave money to 96 national health groups, including the American Diabetes Association and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and lobbied against 29 public-health bills aimed at improving nutrition.</p>
<p>That's according to a <a href="http://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(16)30331-2/fulltext">report published Monday</a> in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, which provides another window into the myriad ways in which members of the US food industry have bankrolled public-health initiatives to try to make their products appear less harmful than they are.</p>
<p>The report is eerily reminiscent of last month's searing New York Times revelation that an <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-american-sugar-industry-convinced-people-fat-was-bad-2016-9">American sugar trade group </a><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-american-sugar-industry-convinced-people-fat-was-bad-2016-9">paid Harvard scientists in the 1960s to publish research</a> portraying sugar as less unhealthy than it actually is.</p>
<p>Public-health experts say Pepsi and Coke's strategy harks back to the days of Big Tobacco.</p>
<p>"First, they attack the science. Then, they fund community groups, promote exercise as a solution, and say they're self-regulated and don't need to be regulated by an outside source," <a href="http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/faculty/Marion_Nestle">Marion Nestle</a>, a New York University professor of public health and nutrition and the author of the book "<a href="http://www.foodpolitics.com/">Food Politics</a>," told Business Insider. The authors of the most recent report seem to agree.</p>
<p>"Lessons can be learned from the history of tobacco companies, which have long given money to sympathetic organizations that deal with domestic abuse, hunger, and minority advancement," they write. "Now, most organizations refuse tobacco money. Perhaps soda companies should be treated similarly."</p>
<p>Over the past two years, the American Beverage Association, the soda industry's main lobby group, has invested <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/10/27/359325115/soda-makers-try-to-take-fizz-out-of-bay-area-tax-campaigns">millions of dollars</a> fighting laws to tax and label sugary beverages. Last year, Coca-Cola was accused of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/coke-research-emphasizes-exercise-for-weight-loss-2015-8">pumping money into misleading research</a> that championed exercise over dietary changes for health and weight loss. The nutrition nonprofit it funded that was part of those efforts <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/coke-funded-research-group-disbands-2015-12">has since disbanded</a>.</p>
<h2>The science is in: Sugary beverages are really, really bad for us</h2>
<p><div>
<iframe src="//giphy.com/embed/n2Q1CIzbmJnX2" width="500" height="310" frameborder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowfullscreen></iframe><p><a href="https://giphy.com/gifs/n2Q1CIzbmJnX2">via GIPHY</a></p>
</div></p>
<p>In November of last year, the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/fda-proposes-new-sugar-limits-2015-11">Food and Drug Administration announced</a> that Americans should eat and drink no more than 50 grams of sugar — less than the amount in a 20-ounce bottle of Coke — each day.</p>
<p>The new proposal has been years in the making: Chatter of the need for a cap on sugar has been circulating among consumers, lawmakers, and public-health advocates since research in the early 2000s first <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-soda-tax-is-gathering-steam-2009-9">linked our excessive consumption of the stuff with obesity, weight gain, and other health problems</a> — especially in children.</p>
<p>In a <a href="http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/84/2/274.full">systematic review</a> of 50 years of studies published in the American Society for Clinical Nutrition in 2006, researchers found "strong evidence for the independent role of the intake of sugar-sweetened beverages, particularly soda, in the promotion of weight gain and obesity in children and adolescents," they wrote in the paper.</p>
<p>The research demonstrating that sugary beverages are bad for us continues to pile up. Another more recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine <a href="http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMhpr0905723">made the links between sugary drinks and America's obesity problem more explicit</a>:</p>
<p>"The science base linking the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages to the risk of chronic diseases is clear," the authors — seven experts in public health, nutrition, and economics — wrote.</p>
<h2>One of the reasons soda may play such an important role in obesity has to do with how sugar is processed in the body.</h2>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/56a90cf858c3236d028b5a1f-2400/fast%20food%20sugar-6.jpg" alt="Fast Food Sugar 6" data-mce-source="Hollis Johnson">All carbohydrates — bread, cereal, or potatoes — are ultimately broken down into glucose, which circulates in our blood and gives us energy. Sugars get broken down quickly and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-you-should-eat-every-day-to-be-healthy-2015-6">tend to raise blood glucose the most dramatically</a>.</p>
<p>But while many foods that are high in natural sugars (fruit, milk, etc.) also contain other nutrients like protein and fiber that help build strong muscles and keep us feeling full, soda does not.</p>
<p>A traditional 12-ounce can of Coke, for example, has 140 calories and 39 grams of sugar but no protein and no fiber to help round out the impact of the sugar. This is part of the reason sugary drinks, like Coke or Gatorade, are called "empty calories" — they are likely to contribute to weight gain because they don't fill you up.</p>
<p>According to the Centers for Disease Control, roughly <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db122.htm#x2013;2010&lt;/a&gt;">one-third</a> of all the calories Americans get from added sugars are from <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-daily-serving-of-sugar-looks-like-2015-7">soda and sugary drinks</a>. (We get the other two-thirds from processed foods like snack bars, cakes, breads, and ice cream.)</p>
<p>"The correlations between soda and obesity are extremely strong," Nestle told me.</p>
<p>The American Beverage Association provided Business Insider with the following comment:</p>
<p>"Yes, we may disagree with some in the public health community on discriminatory and regressive taxes and policies on our products. But, we believe our actions in communities and the marketplace are contributing to addressing the complex challenge of obesity. We stand strongly for our need, and right, to partner with organizations that strengthen our communities."</p><p><strong>READ MORE:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/fda-proposes-new-sugar-limits-2015-11" >The government just proposed a sea change to American diets — and one industry is furious</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/healthy-options-at-chipotle-panera-shake-shack-2015-10" >The healthiest things you can order at 12 fast-food chains</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/pepsi-coca-cola-coke-fund-health-groups-american-diabetes-foundation-2016-10#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-calculate-your-body-mass-index-2015-9">How to know if you're fat</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/should-you-eat-a-low-fat-diet-2016-9We should never have told people to stop eating fathttp://www.businessinsider.com/should-you-eat-a-low-fat-diet-2016-9
Sun, 18 Sep 2016 13:00:00 -0400Kevin Loria
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5238b5e7ecad046e6db27515-600-/1024px-flickr_hellochris_202508906--in-n-out_triple_cheeseburger_fries.jpg" alt="In N Out triple cheeseburger with fries" width="600" border="0" /></p><p></p>
<p>The decision to demonize fat for its caloric density and heart-clogging effects &mdash; a decision that drove people away from butter and cheese and toward low-fat foods that required plenty of sugar to have some flavor &mdash; wasn't just bad science, according to a report analyzing historical food industry documents that was published September 12 <a href="http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2548255">in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine</a>.</p>
<p>That national dietary shift from fat to sugar came about at least in part because of a major 1967 review of dietary science.&nbsp;Those historical documents reveal that a food industry group called the Sugar Research Foundation paid three Harvard researchers $6,500 (about $50,000 today) to discount research that increasingly showed links between sugar and heart disease and to point the blame at fat instead.</p>
<p>The industry group selected the data the Harvard scientists used for the review and suggested the research to include. Their final paper, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, set the US diet on a new course.</p>
<p>"The documents leave little doubt that the intent of the industry-funded review was to reach a foregone conclusion," <a href="http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/faculty/Marion_Nestle">Marion Nestle</a>, a professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University, <a href="http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2548251">wrote in a commentary published</a> alongside the new analysis.</p>
<p>These revelations are new, but for years scientists have wondered whether we got fat all wrong.</p>
<p><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/57d7f996b0ef975f148b515e-939/candy-jars-choices.jpg" alt="candy jars choices" data-mce-source="Justin Sullivan / Staff / Getty Images" /></p>
<p><a href="http://openheart.bmj.com/content/2/1/e000196.full">A major 2015 meta-analysis</a> argued that there was never enough evidence to curb our consumption of fatty foods. Documentaries like "Fed Up" <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/10/sugar-is-the-enemy-film-challenges-obesity-myths-fed-up">made the argument</a> that sugar is a bigger problem than fat in today's obesity and diabetes epidemics, and another well-cited <a href="http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1846638">recent study</a> found that saturated fat did not seem to be as bad for heart health as guidelines made it out to be.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/dga2010/DietaryGuidelines2010.pdf">Dietary guidelines</a> in the US still say that we should restrict saturated fat to under 10% of daily caloric intake, and that adults should not get more than 20% to 35% of their daily calories from fats.</p>
<p>The American Heart Association is even stricter, <a href="http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/NutritionCenter/HealthyEating/Saturated-Fats_UCM_301110_Article.jsp">recommending</a> limiting saturated fat to 5% to 6% of daily caloric intake &mdash; though those recommendations are based on what the evidence suggests is best for adults already at risk of heart disease, says Dr. Alice Lichtenstein, the director of the <a href="http://hnrca.tufts.edu/research/research-laboratories/cardiovascular-nutrition/">Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory</a> at Tufts University and a member of the nutrition committee at the AHA.</p>
<p>Guidelines restricting fat consumption to present-day levels went into effect in the US in 1977 and in the UK in 1983. But that 2015 meta-analysis of those guidelines, <a href="http://openheart.bmj.com/content/2/1/e000196.full#ref-31">published in the BMJ journal Open Heart</a>, comes to the conclusion that there was not evidence to support them in the first place.</p>
<p>After looking at the research on fat and sugar consumption that existed at the time, the authors of that analysis concluded that the "dietary advice not merely needs review; it should not have been introduced."</p>
<p>At the time, we didn't know that the research that ostensibly provided support for those guidelines had been tainted by industry funding.</p>
<h2>The evidence for limiting fat when the guidelines were introduced</h2>
<p>The authors of the Open Heart study say they wanted to understand the evidence used to establish present-day guidelines for dietary fat consumption. In particular, they wanted to see whether the dietary guidelines that affected 276 million people in the US and UK at the time had been tested using randomized controlled trials, which are considered the gold standard and most informative test for any clinical decision.</p>
<p>But when the low-fat guidelines were put into place more than 30 years ago, neither the UK nor the US cited any of the randomized controlled studies available at the time. And even if the two countries looked at them, it would have been hard to use them as evidence that dietary fat was a problem.</p>
<p>The authors of the 2015 study found eight randomized trials that would have been available to policymakers, which included 2,467 men and no women. Testing various dietary changes involving fat had no effect on the subjects' likelihood of death, either from heart disease or any other cause.</p>
<p>So hundreds of millions of people were given dietary guidelines that were arguably not supported by the evidence.</p>
<p><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/54dcb867ecad04691e8b456a-1200-924/george-mcgovern-1.jpg" alt="George McGovern" border="0" /></p>
<p>It seems that even in 1977, researchers didn't think they had conclusive conclusive evidence &mdash; the authors of the Open Heart study cite a historical exchange between Dr. Robert Olson of St. Louis University and the chair of the Senate dietary committee, Sen. George McGovern.</p>
<p>"I pleaded in my report and will plead again orally here for more research on the problem before we make announcements to the American public," Olson said.</p>
<p>But McGovern replied, "Senators don't have the luxury that the research scientist does of waiting until every last shred of evidence is in."</p>
<h2>How cutting fat could have been bad for our health</h2>
<p>An increasing amount of <a href="http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1846638">research says</a> saturated fats &mdash; those in butter and cheese &mdash; just aren't as bad for you or your heart as we thought.</p>
<p><a href="http://openheart.bmj.com/content/1/1/e000032.full">Many researchers have said</a> that focus on fat led people to consume carbohydrates instead &mdash; in particular those from refined sugar &mdash; which seems to have been the intent of the SRF-funded 1967 research.</p>
<p>When those researchers shared drafts of their work with then SRF Vice President John Hickson, he replied: "Let me assure you this is quite what we had in mind and we look forward to its appearance in print."</p>
<p>Now researchers say that sugar consumption has led to a serious increase in the diabetes rate. When a low-fat diet was tested against a low-carbohydrate diet &mdash; as long as both were low in calories overall &mdash; the low-carb diet was much more beneficial, the researchers showed. People on the low-carb diet lost abdominal fat and body mass, had improved glucose tolerance, better cholesterol, and less inflammation. All of those measurements got worse on the low-fat diet, in which fat was replaced with carbs.</p>
<p>When the low-fat craze swept society, people didn't necessarily consume fewer calories by steering clear of fat &mdash; they just ate trans fats instead of saturated fat, which turned out to be much worse for health, or they consumed carbs, especially sugars and processed "low-fat" snacks, which may also be much worse for us.</p>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54dcb8c4eab8ea720d8b456a-903-677/sugar-soda.jpg" alt="sugar soda" border="0" /></p>
<h2>Throw out the guidelines and eat endless cheeseburgers?</h2>
<p>Should we rejoice and celebrate that, as food writer Mark Bittman writes, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/26/opinion/bittman-butter-is-back.html?_r=0">butter is back</a>?</p>
<p>Not entirely.</p>
<p>First of all, Lichtenstein says, no one &mdash; not the AHA or national health guidelines &mdash; is promoting a low-fat diet anymore. She says health experts agree that directing people toward low-fat diets caused them to consume carbs and sugar "with abandon," which clearly had negative consequences.</p>
<p>Now, she says, health experts promote a moderate-fat diet, still getting about 30% of calories from fat but replacing saturated fats with healthier fats, like those from vegetable oils, when possible. We realized that going low-fat was bad even before we knew those ideas were funded by pro-sugar groups.</p>
<p>Further, she says that some of the reviews that seem to <a href="http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1846638">vindicate saturated fat</a> are too broad and incorporate too many different types of studies &mdash; some that cut saturated fat when it might be replaced by carbs (not healthy), others in which healthier fats are consumed instead of saturated fats.</p>
<p>She says that if the focus is on consuming healthy fat instead of saturated fat, <a href="http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/NutritionCenter/HealthyEating/Saturated-Fats_UCM_301110_Article.jsp">those health benefits</a> are clear.</p>
<p>As for the history of nutritional guidelines, randomized controlled trials may not have provided evidence telling us to cut fat out of our diets, but as Rahul Bahl <a href="http://openheart.bmj.com/content/2/1/e000229.full">writes&nbsp;in an editorial</a>&nbsp;published along with the 2015 study in Open Heart, that doesn't mean there's no evidence at all.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/NutritionCenter/HealthyEating/Saturated-Fats_UCM_301110_Article.jsp">American Heart Association notes</a> that eating more saturated fat is associated with a rise in cholesterol, and while not all cholesterol is bad, higher levels of one type of cholesterol from saturated fat are associated with a greater risk of heart disease and stroke.</p>
<p>Others argue that those associations <a href="http://authoritynutrition.com/saturated-fat-good-or-bad/">don't mean the link between</a> saturated fat and heart disease has been proved.</p>
<p><img class="float_left" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54dcb9c9eab8ead7108b4568-367-275/avocado-23.jpg" alt="avocado" border="0" /></p>
<p>Still, dietary guidelines don't normally depend on evidence from randomized clinical trials, Bahl says, so to withdraw guidelines based on a lack of those trials would be unusual. It is also hard to complete long-term randomized nutrition studies because people don't tend to stick with prescribed diets consistently, and it is not feasible to provide all the meals for a large population over a period of years.</p>
<p>Normally, he says, those guidelines are made based on evidence that is observed in large populations over time. He says <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17955332">one example occurred</a> because of political changes in Eastern Europe in the 1990s, when large populations started consuming more healthy fat from vegetable oils, which was associated with improved heart health.</p>
<p>Bahl told Business Insider, however, that he thinks it is worth revisiting nutritional guidelines to incorporate new evidence and to take a more thorough look at carbohydrates, especially sugar.</p>
<p>"There is certainly a strong argument that an overreliance in public health on saturated fat as the main dietary villain for cardiovascular disease has distracted from the risks posed by other nutrients," he wrote in the editorial.</p>
<p>That doesn't mean it's the end of the story.</p>
<p>"I think the real relationships between all these nutrients and health outcomes is probably more complicated then we have examined in most studies so far," Bahl told Business Insider.</p>
<p>For now, though, several things are certain: First, the low-fat guidelines jumped the gun. For most people, it is long past time to give fats &mdash; especially healthy ones &mdash; a prominent place on their plates. Second, the newly published JAMA historical analysis provides even more of a reason to make sure that industry groups aren't funding the research that we use to guide the way we eat.</p>
<p>As <a href="http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/coca-cola-funds-scientists-who-shift-blame-for-obesity-away-from-bad-diets/">The New York Times revealed in 2015</a>, Coca-Cola provided millions of dollars to support research that implied sugary drinks weren't necessarily linked to growing obesity rates.</p>
<p>Nestle writes in her commentary that other companies do the same; candy companies promoted studies showing that kids who eat candy have healthier body weights</p>
<p>"Today, it is almost impossible to keep up with the range of food companies sponsoring research &mdash; from makers of the most highly processed foods, drinks, and supplements to producers of dairy foods, meats, fruits, and nuts &mdash; typically yielding results favorable to the sponsor's interests," <a href="http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2548251">Nestle wrote</a>. "Food company sponsorship, whether or not intentionally manipulative, undermines public trust in nutrition science, contributes to public confusion about what to eat, and compromises dietary guidelines in ways that are not in the best interest of public health."</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-lose-weight-and-eat-healthy-2014-12" >Here is the simplest advice for anyone trying to lose weight or eat healthy</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/should-you-eat-a-low-fat-diet-2016-9#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/science-behind-how-to-lose-weight-2014-12">The Simple Science Behind Weight Loss</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/should-you-eat-a-low-fat-diet-2016-9We should never have told people to stop eating fathttp://www.businessinsider.com/should-you-eat-a-low-fat-diet-2016-9
Tue, 13 Sep 2016 09:24:16 -0400Kevin Loria
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5238b5e7ecad046e6db27515-600-/1024px-flickr_hellochris_202508906--in-n-out_triple_cheeseburger_fries.jpg" alt="In N Out triple cheeseburger with fries" width="600" border="0" /></p><p></p>
<p>The decision to demonize fat for its caloric density and heart-clogging effects &mdash; a decision that drove people away from butter and cheese and toward low-fat foods that required plenty of sugar to have some flavor &mdash; wasn't just bad science, according to a report analyzing historical food industry documents that was published September 12 <a href="http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2548255">in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine</a>.</p>
<p>That national dietary shift from fat to sugar came about at least in part because of a major 1967 review of dietary science.&nbsp;Those historical documents reveal that a food industry group called the Sugar Research Foundation paid three Harvard researchers $6,500 (about $50,000 today) to discount research that increasingly showed links between sugar and heart disease and to point the blame at fat instead.</p>
<p>The industry group selected the data the Harvard scientists used for the review and suggested the research to include. Their final paper, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, set the US diet on a new course.</p>
<p>"The documents leave little doubt that the intent of the industry-funded review was to reach a foregone conclusion," <a href="http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/faculty/Marion_Nestle">Marion Nestle</a>, a professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University, <a href="http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2548251">wrote in a commentary published</a> alongside the new analysis.</p>
<p>These revelations are new, but for years scientists have wondered whether we got fat all wrong.</p>
<p><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/57d7f996b0ef975f148b515e-939/candy-jars-choices.jpg" alt="candy jars choices" data-mce-source="Justin Sullivan / Staff / Getty Images" /></p>
<p><a href="http://openheart.bmj.com/content/2/1/e000196.full">A major 2015 meta-analysis</a> argued that there was never enough evidence to curb our consumption of fatty foods. Documentaries like "Fed Up" <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/10/sugar-is-the-enemy-film-challenges-obesity-myths-fed-up">made the argument</a> that sugar is a bigger problem than fat in today's obesity and diabetes epidemics, and another well-cited <a href="http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1846638">recent study</a> found that saturated fat did not seem to be as bad for heart health as guidelines made it out to be.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/dga2010/DietaryGuidelines2010.pdf">Dietary guidelines</a> in the US still say that we should restrict saturated fat to under 10% of daily caloric intake, and that adults should not get more than 20% to 35% of their daily calories from fats.</p>
<p>The American Heart Association is even stricter, <a href="http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/NutritionCenter/HealthyEating/Saturated-Fats_UCM_301110_Article.jsp">recommending</a> limiting saturated fat to 5% to 6% of daily caloric intake &mdash; though those recommendations are based on what the evidence suggests is best for adults already at risk of heart disease, says Dr. Alice Lichtenstein, the director of the <a href="http://hnrca.tufts.edu/research/research-laboratories/cardiovascular-nutrition/">Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory</a> at Tufts University and a member of the nutrition committee at the AHA.</p>
<p>Guidelines restricting fat consumption to present-day levels went into effect in the US in 1977 and in the UK in 1983. But that 2015 meta-analysis of those guidelines, <a href="http://openheart.bmj.com/content/2/1/e000196.full#ref-31">published in the BMJ journal Open Heart</a>, comes to the conclusion that there was not evidence to support them in the first place.</p>
<p>After looking at the research on fat and sugar consumption that existed at the time, the authors of that analysis concluded that the "dietary advice not merely needs review; it should not have been introduced."</p>
<p>At the time, we didn't know that the research that ostensibly provided support for those guidelines had been tainted by industry funding.</p>
<h2>The evidence for limiting fat when the guidelines were introduced</h2>
<p>The authors of the Open Heart study say they wanted to understand the evidence used to establish present-day guidelines for dietary fat consumption. In particular, they wanted to see whether the dietary guidelines that affected 276 million people in the US and UK at the time had been tested using randomized controlled trials, which are considered the gold standard and most informative test for any clinical decision.</p>
<p>But when the low-fat guidelines were put into place more than 30 years ago, neither the UK nor the US cited any of the randomized controlled studies available at the time. And even if the two countries looked at them, it would have been hard to use them as evidence that dietary fat was a problem.</p>
<p>The authors of the 2015 study found eight randomized trials that would have been available to policymakers, which included 2,467 men and no women. Testing various dietary changes involving fat had no effect on the subjects' likelihood of death, either from heart disease or any other cause.</p>
<p>So hundreds of millions of people were given dietary guidelines that were arguably not supported by the evidence.</p>
<p><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/54dcb867ecad04691e8b456a-1200-924/george-mcgovern-1.jpg" alt="George McGovern" border="0" /></p>
<p>It seems that even in 1977, researchers didn't think they had conclusive conclusive evidence &mdash; the authors of the Open Heart study cite a historical exchange between Dr. Robert Olson of St. Louis University and the chair of the Senate dietary committee, Sen. George McGovern.</p>
<p>"I pleaded in my report and will plead again orally here for more research on the problem before we make announcements to the American public," Olson said.</p>
<p>But McGovern replied, "Senators don't have the luxury that the research scientist does of waiting until every last shred of evidence is in."</p>
<h2>How cutting fat could have been bad for our health</h2>
<p>An increasing amount of <a href="http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1846638">research says</a> saturated fats &mdash; those in butter and cheese &mdash; just aren't as bad for you or your heart as we thought.</p>
<p><a href="http://openheart.bmj.com/content/1/1/e000032.full">Many researchers have said</a> that focus on fat led people to consume carbohydrates instead &mdash; in particular those from refined sugar &mdash; which seems to have been the intent of the SRF-funded 1967 research.</p>
<p>When those researchers shared drafts of their work with then SRF Vice President John Hickson, he replied: "Let me assure you this is quite what we had in mind and we look forward to its appearance in print."</p>
<p>Now researchers say that sugar consumption has led to a serious increase in the diabetes rate. When a low-fat diet was tested against a low-carbohydrate diet &mdash; as long as both were low in calories overall &mdash; the low-carb diet was much more beneficial, the researchers showed. People on the low-carb diet lost abdominal fat and body mass, had improved glucose tolerance, better cholesterol, and less inflammation. All of those measurements got worse on the low-fat diet, in which fat was replaced with carbs.</p>
<p>When the low-fat craze swept society, people didn't necessarily consume fewer calories by steering clear of fat &mdash; they just ate trans fats instead of saturated fat, which turned out to be much worse for health, or they consumed carbs, especially sugars and processed "low-fat" snacks, which may also be much worse for us.</p>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54dcb8c4eab8ea720d8b456a-903-677/sugar-soda.jpg" alt="sugar soda" border="0" /></p>
<h2>Throw out the guidelines and eat endless cheeseburgers?</h2>
<p>Should we rejoice and celebrate that, as food writer Mark Bittman writes, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/26/opinion/bittman-butter-is-back.html?_r=0">butter is back</a>?</p>
<p>Not entirely.</p>
<p>First of all, Lichtenstein says, no one &mdash; not the AHA or national health guidelines &mdash; is promoting a low-fat diet anymore. She says health experts agree that directing people toward low-fat diets caused them to consume carbs and sugar "with abandon," which clearly had negative consequences.</p>
<p>Now, she says, health experts promote a moderate-fat diet, still getting about 30% of calories from fat but replacing saturated fats with healthier fats, like those from vegetable oils, when possible. We realized that going low-fat was bad even before we knew those ideas were funded by pro-sugar groups.</p>
<p>Further, she says that some of the reviews that seem to <a href="http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1846638">vindicate saturated fat</a> are too broad and incorporate too many different types of studies &mdash; some that cut saturated fat when it might be replaced by carbs (not healthy), others in which healthier fats are consumed instead of saturated fats.</p>
<p>She says that if the focus is on consuming healthy fat instead of saturated fat, <a href="http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/NutritionCenter/HealthyEating/Saturated-Fats_UCM_301110_Article.jsp">those health benefits</a> are clear.</p>
<p>As for the history of nutritional guidelines, randomized controlled trials may not have provided evidence telling us to cut fat out of our diets, but as Rahul Bahl <a href="http://openheart.bmj.com/content/2/1/e000229.full">writes&nbsp;in an editorial</a>&nbsp;published along with the 2015 study in Open Heart, that doesn't mean there's no evidence at all.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/NutritionCenter/HealthyEating/Saturated-Fats_UCM_301110_Article.jsp">American Heart Association notes</a> that eating more saturated fat is associated with a rise in cholesterol, and while not all cholesterol is bad, higher levels of one type of cholesterol from saturated fat are associated with a greater risk of heart disease and stroke.</p>
<p>Others argue that those associations <a href="http://authoritynutrition.com/saturated-fat-good-or-bad/">don't mean the link between</a> saturated fat and heart disease has been proved.</p>
<p><img class="float_left" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54dcb9c9eab8ead7108b4568-367-275/avocado-23.jpg" alt="avocado" border="0" /></p>
<p>Still, dietary guidelines don't normally depend on evidence from randomized clinical trials, Bahl says, so to withdraw guidelines based on a lack of those trials would be unusual. It is also hard to complete long-term randomized nutrition studies because people don't tend to stick with prescribed diets consistently, and it is not feasible to provide all the meals for a large population over a period of years.</p>
<p>Normally, he says, those guidelines are made based on evidence that is observed in large populations over time. He says <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17955332">one example occurred</a> because of political changes in Eastern Europe in the 1990s, when large populations started consuming more healthy fat from vegetable oils, which was associated with improved heart health.</p>
<p>Bahl told Business Insider, however, that he thinks it is worth revisiting nutritional guidelines to incorporate new evidence and to take a more thorough look at carbohydrates, especially sugar.</p>
<p>"There is certainly a strong argument that an overreliance in public health on saturated fat as the main dietary villain for cardiovascular disease has distracted from the risks posed by other nutrients," he wrote in the editorial.</p>
<p>That doesn't mean it's the end of the story.</p>
<p>"I think the real relationships between all these nutrients and health outcomes is probably more complicated then we have examined in most studies so far," Bahl told Business Insider.</p>
<p>For now, though, several things are certain: First, the low-fat guidelines jumped the gun. For most people, it is long past time to give fats &mdash; especially healthy ones &mdash; a prominent place on their plates. Second, the newly published JAMA historical analysis provides even more of a reason to make sure that industry groups aren't funding the research that we use to guide the way we eat.</p>
<p>As <a href="http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/coca-cola-funds-scientists-who-shift-blame-for-obesity-away-from-bad-diets/">The New York Times revealed in 2015</a>, Coca-Cola provided millions of dollars to support research that implied sugary drinks weren't necessarily linked to growing obesity rates.</p>
<p>Nestle writes in her commentary that other companies do the same; candy companies promoted studies showing that kids who eat candy have healthier body weights</p>
<p>"Today, it is almost impossible to keep up with the range of food companies sponsoring research &mdash; from makers of the most highly processed foods, drinks, and supplements to producers of dairy foods, meats, fruits, and nuts &mdash; typically yielding results favorable to the sponsor's interests," <a href="http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2548251">Nestle wrote</a>. "Food company sponsorship, whether or not intentionally manipulative, undermines public trust in nutrition science, contributes to public confusion about what to eat, and compromises dietary guidelines in ways that are not in the best interest of public health."</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-lose-weight-and-eat-healthy-2014-12" >Here is the simplest advice for anyone trying to lose weight or eat healthy</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/should-you-eat-a-low-fat-diet-2016-9#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/science-behind-how-to-lose-weight-2014-12">The Simple Science Behind Weight Loss</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/miss-america-body-size-compared-to-average-woman-2016-9One chart shows how unrealistic Miss America has becomehttp://www.businessinsider.com/miss-america-body-size-compared-to-average-woman-2016-9
Sun, 11 Sep 2016 22:04:00 -0400Megan Willett
<p>We've looked at how Miss America <a href="http://www.thisisinsider.com/how-miss-america-winners-have-changed-2016-9">winners&rsquo; body types have evolved from 1921 to now</a> through one GIF.</p>
<p><span>The team that put together the GIF&nbsp;&mdash; <a href="http://www.psychguides.com/interact/the-evolution-of-miss-america/"><span>educational website PsychGuides.com</span></a></span><span> &mdash; also made a chart that shows how disconnected the Miss America competition is&nbsp;with the real America.</span></p>
<p><span><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/55f6df67dd0895333a8b458b-800-741/graph-1.jpg" alt="graph 1 PsychGuides.com" data-mce-source="PsychGuides.com" data-link="http://www.psychguides.com/interact/the-evolution-of-miss-america/" /></span></p>
<p><span>PsychGuides.com found that the only decades </span><span>when the average U.S. woman and the Miss America winners fell in the same range were in the 1940s and &lsquo;50s. The graph shows that over the years, Miss America has gotten thinner while the average American woman in her 20s has only gotten heavier.</span></p>
<p><span><span>&ldquo;Miss America represents the highest ideals. She is a real combination of beauty, grace, and intelligence, artistic and refined,&rdquo; </span><a href="http://www.missamerica.org/our-miss-americas/miss-america-history.aspx">the official Miss America website states</a><span>. &ldquo;She is a type which the American girl might well emulate.&rdquo;</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>But this strong focus on beauty and thinness can&nbsp;be damaging to women who don't fit the ideal, according to PsychGuides.com, and even lead to eating disorders as young girls strive to become society's&nbsp;"perfect woman."</span></span></p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/55f6df67dd0895333a8b458c-2525-1894/rts10jk.jpg" alt="miss america 2016 pageant" data-mce-source="Mark Makela/REUTERS" /></p>
<p><span>The team added&nbsp;that these images of women&rsquo;s bodies "can perpetuate an unrealistic expectation for the average female&rsquo;s body."</span></p>
<p><span>It&rsquo;s not the first criticism of the pageant, which was protested in the &lsquo;60s and draws numerous op-eds today questioning why the $50,000 scholarship competition still emphasizes a bikini-focused swimsuit segment where only the contestants&rsquo; bodies are judged.</span></p>
<p><span>And the evolving standards for contestants&rsquo; body types as well as the PsychGuides.com graph also tell the story of how being thin has become the ideal in America while at the same time fewer&nbsp;and fewer&nbsp;women are able to meet that criteria.</span></p>
<p><span>Studies have found that wealth and success are&nbsp;associated with being thin. Not only do <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/skinny-women-make-more-money-2011-6">skinny women&nbsp;get paid more</a>, but <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/attractive-people-are-more-successful-2012-9">conventionally attractive people are also hired sooner and get promotions more quickly</a>. And to be thought of as conventionally attractive as a woman, it&rsquo;s paramount that you&rsquo;re thin.</span></p>
<p><span><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/56000e34dd089551578b4631-800-558/overweight-diabetes-patients-outlive-slimmer-ones---study.jpg" alt="File photo of an overweight woman in Times Square in New York, May 8, 2012. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson " data-mce-source="Thomson Reuters" data-mce-caption="An overweight woman sits on a chair in Times Square in New York" /></span></p>
<p><span>Thinness also has socioeconomic&nbsp;implications. Whether it's true or not, being skinny&nbsp;conveys that you have the resources to be active and eat healthy&nbsp;food. Poverty is now associated with obesity thanks to the rise of affordable fast food, and <a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/66564836/obesity-linked-to-cycle-of-poverty">one study even found</a> that there is a link between obesity&nbsp;and being stuck in a&nbsp;&ldquo;vicious cycle&rdquo; of poverty.</span></p>
<p><span>Meanwhile,&nbsp;Miss America competitions are still held annually&nbsp;where winners like this year's <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2015/09/13/miss-georgia--crowned-miss-america-2016/72237830/">Miss Georgia Betty Cantrell</a>&nbsp;have platforms like "Healthy Georgia, Strong America."&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span>And though the contest's popularity&nbsp;may be waning &mdash; in 2014, viewership was down 25% compared to 2013, <a href="http://deadline.com/2014/09/sunday-night-football-ratings-miss-america-viewers-big-brother-834458/"><span>according to Deadline</span></a> &mdash; you need only look online or at a newsstand to see that the perception of thin women as the ideal in the media isn&rsquo;t going anywhere.</span></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/miss-america-body-size-compared-to-average-woman-2016-9#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/body-mass-index-bmi-weight-fat-2015-7">Why BMI is BS</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-where-obesity-rates-are-highest-in-the-us-2016-9Here's where obesity rates are highest in the UShttp://www.businessinsider.com/heres-where-obesity-rates-are-highest-in-the-us-2016-9
Thu, 01 Sep 2016 16:31:33 -0400Megan Thielking
<p>There isn&rsquo;t a single state in the United States with an adult obesity rate under 20 percent.</p>
<p>Four states &mdash; Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and West Virginia &mdash; have obesity rates that top 35 percent,&nbsp;according to new <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/prevalence-maps.html" target="_blank">data published</a> Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But promisingly, for the most part, the rates stayed stable between 2014 and 2015.</p>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/57c88ebbb996eb79018b5ba7-877/brfss_2015_obesity-600px.jpg" alt="brfss_2015_obesity 600px" data-mce-source="CDC" data-mce-caption="Prevalence of self-reported obesity of US adults." /></p>
<p>Here&rsquo;s how the numbers break down:</p>
<ul>
<li>Only six states had obesity rates between 20 and 25 percent: California, Colorado, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Montana, and Utah.</li>
<li>Obesity prevalence varies widely based on race and ethnicity. Take, for example, Puerto Rico. The overall prevalence of obesity there is 29 percent. But among white adults, the prevalence jumps to over 45 percent.</li>
<li>Nationwide, black individuals had the highest rate of&nbsp;obesity&nbsp;of all&nbsp;racial and ethnic groups. More than 38 percent of black individuals reported being obese.</li>
<li>The South had the highest prevalence of obesity by region, ringing in at 31 percent. Obesity was least common in the West; there, just 25 percent of adults reported being obese.</li>
</ul>
<p>One thing to keep in mind:&nbsp;The numbers are&nbsp;self-reported, so it&rsquo;s possible obesity rates are <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2016/03/31/global-obesity-underweight/" target="_blank">actually higher</a>.</p>
<p>&ldquo;The stakes could not be higher,&rdquo; Dr. Donald Schwartz of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which helped prepare the report, told journalists on Thursday. &ldquo;The obesity epidemic is taking a toll on the country&rsquo;s health.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Schwartz said there&rsquo;s work to be done in making sure everyone in the US has access to <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2015/11/12/obesity-rates/" target="_blank">healthy, affordable food</a>, and safe places to exercise.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/small-weight-loss-brings-big-health-benefits-for-some-2016-2" >Even a small amount of weight loss can have a profound impact on some people's health</a></strong></p>
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<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-where-obesity-rates-are-highest-in-the-us-2016-9#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-rocket-explodes-launc-site-cape-canaveral-florida-2016-9">A SpaceX rocket just exploded on the launchpad</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/experts-find-additional-evidence-of-obesity-cancer-link-2016-8Experts find evidence that excess body fat increases the risk of certain cancershttp://www.businessinsider.com/experts-find-additional-evidence-of-obesity-cancer-link-2016-8
Wed, 24 Aug 2016 17:50:33 -0400Zhai Yun Tan
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/57be166cce38f298008b8baa-1861/rtr31sa1.jpg" alt="rtr31sa1" data-mce-source="Reuters/Lucas Jackson" /></p><p>There may be plenty of room for debate about whether some aspects of everyday life cause cancer &mdash; whether it&rsquo;s drinking too much coffee, eating too much sugar or talking too much on a cell phone.</p>
<p>But the opposite seems to be true regarding the causal link with obesity, according to a scientific review by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.</p>
<p>Fourteen years ago when the <a href="https://www.iarc.fr/en/about/index.php" target="_blank">IARC</a>, based in Lyon, France, first reviewed relevant studies, its expert panel issued a report finding sufficient evidence that excess body fat increases the risk of certain cancers. Now, the<a href="http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsr1606602" target="_blank"> group&rsquo;s latest reassessment</a>, published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, reaffirms those findings &mdash;&nbsp;and adds eight more cancers to the list.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Since 2002 there have been a lot of new studies conducted. We felt like it was the right time to review the literature and maybe confirm the science that has been established,&rdquo; said <a href="https://www.iarc.fr/en/staffdirectory/displaystaff.php?id=20077" target="_blank">Beatrice Lauby-Secretan</a>, lead author of the article and an IARC scientist responsible for the agency&rsquo;s Handbooks of Cancer Prevention Series. The IARC is part of the World Health Organization.</p>
<p>A working group of 21 independent international cancer experts reviewed more than 1,000 studies on cancer risk and excess body fat published since the IARC&rsquo;s 2002 report. That evaluation identified that preventing weight gain can reduce the risk of colon and rectum cancer; a stomach cancer called esophagus adenocarcinoma; kidney or renal cell carcinoma; postmenopausal breast cancer and cancer in the endometrium of the uterus. This year&rsquo;s &nbsp;reassessment added to this list gastric cancer, liver, gallbladder, pancreas, ovary and thyroid cancers as well as the blood cancer <a href="http://www.cancer.org/cancer/multiplemyeloma/detailedguide/multiple-myeloma-what-is-multiple-myeloma" target="_blank">multiple myeloma</a> and <a href="http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/neurology_neurosurgery/centers_clinics/brain_tumor/center/meningioma/" target="_blank">meningioma</a>&nbsp;&mdash; cancer that affects the tissue surrounding the brain and spine.</p>
<p>The risks are highest for <a href="http://www.cancernetwork.com/cancer-management/uterine-corpus-tumors" target="_blank">corpus uteri</a>, a cancer in the uterus, and <a href="http://www.cancer.gov/types/esophageal" target="_blank">esophagus adenocarcinoma</a>.</p>
<p>&ldquo;The number of cancers that are linked to obesity has increased a lot, which means a much higher proportion of cancer that occurs today is due to obesity,&rdquo; Lauby-Secretan said. Public health messages should be tailored to raising awareness about this fact, she added.</p>
<p>Results also were consistent for children, adolescents and adults younger than 25.</p>
<p>Overweight adults are defined in the study as those with <a href="http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmicalc.htm" target="_blank">body mass indexes</a>&nbsp;(BMI) of 25.0 to 29.9, while obese adults have BMIs above 30. According to the study, an estimated 640 million adults worldwide were obese in 2014, which is six times more than in 1975. Around 110 million children and adolescents were obese in 2013, two times more than in 1980.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the report also found that an estimated 4.5 million deaths in 2013 were related to overweight and obesity, a number that may increase as more cancers are found to be related to the condition.</p>
<p>&ldquo;The epidemic of obesity has become a global concern,&rdquo; Lauby-Secretan said.</p>
<p>Not all cancers have positive correlations with obesity, though. For example, there is only limited evidence of this link for fatal cancer of the prostate, breast cancer in men and <a href="http://www.lymphoma.org/site/pp.asp?c=bkLTKaOQLmK8E&amp;b=6300153" target="_blank">diffuse large B-cell lymphoma</a>, the most common blood cancer. Evidence is inadequate for cancers of the lung, testis, urinary bladder, brain or spinal cord. While excess fat does lead to higher risks of postmenopausal breast cancer, it does not have the same effect for premenopausal breast cancer.</p>
<p>The reason obesity may increase cancer risks, Lauby-Secretan said, is because excess body fat has been known to trigger <a href="http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/chronic+inflammation" target="_blank">chronic inflammation</a>. It also disturbs the regulation of sex hormones. Both are common pathways for the development of cancer cells in the body.</p>
<p>But the awareness about the link can be low especially when Americans are inundated with news about how many substances &mdash;&nbsp;coffee or sugar, for instance &mdash; may or may not cause cancer. According to the <a href="http://www.aicr.org/" target="_blank">American Institute for Cancer Research&rsquo;s</a><a href="http://www.aicr.org/press/press-releases/2015/new-survey-us-beliefs-about-cancer-risk-put-fear-before-facts.html" target="_blank"> biennial survey</a> released in February 2015, a little more than half of Americans realize that being overweight can increase cancer risk, a slight increase over prior surveys.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.aicr.org/press/aicr-experts/" target="_blank">Alice Bender</a>, head of nutrition programs for AICR, said there will always be studies that disprove or prove links &mdash;&nbsp;but when you look at the whole body of research, there is a scientific consensus on this particular point. And people can actively reduce cancer risks from excess body fat, Bender said, by eating healthier meals and exercising more.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oftentimes people are concerned about exposures in the environment or genetics or things you can&rsquo;t control,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Rather than increase fear about this, we can see this as an empowering message: Here is something I can do to help myself lower the risk for many of these cancers &hellip; here are some lifestyle changes that I can make.&rdquo;</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/leading-causes-of-death-in-us-cancer-and-heart-disease-2016-8" >Cancer is now the leading cause of death in 22 states</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>DON'T MISS:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/laron-syndrom-anti-aging-ecuador-fasting-mimicking-diet-2016-8" >These unique people might hold a key to defeating aging</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/experts-find-additional-evidence-of-obesity-cancer-link-2016-8#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/preauricular-sinus-small-hole-above-ear-2016-11">Here's why some people have a tiny hole above their ears</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/weight-watchers-works-using-point-system-2016-8This tiny icon is actually a solution to a key problem with eating healthyhttp://www.businessinsider.com/weight-watchers-works-using-point-system-2016-8
Tue, 23 Aug 2016 10:02:00 -0400Erin Brodwin
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/57bb6f45db5ce9ad018b832e-1311/weight_watchers_strawberry_swirl.jpeg" alt="Weight_Watchers_Strawberry_Swirl" data-mce-source="Katie's Nesting Spot" data-link="http://www.katiesnestingspot.com/" /></p><p>When's the last time you looked at a food's nutrition label <em>before</em> you downed its contents?</p>
<p>More importantly, did the mishmash of black-and-white numbers, letters, and scientific lingo mean anything to you?</p>
<p>If the answer is "never" and "no," <a href="http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/press-room/2012/fifty-nine-percent-of-consumers-around-the-world-indicate-diffic.html">you're not alone</a>.</p>
<p>Nutrition labels, which haven't been updated since 1994, are notoriously confusing. But if you're looking to lose weight, the information they include is important.</p>
<p>Instead of trying to break it all down for consumers, Weight Watchers made up its own system.</p>
<p>That's what that tiny blue icon in the corner of many packaged foods refers to. It tells you how many points a food has based on four key things you'll find on a standard nutrition label: calories, fat, sugar, and protein. You don't have to worry about the rest, like the oft-ignored part where it says "standard serving size."</p>
<h2>What the heck is a 'standard serving size'?</h2>
<p>In Food and Drug Administration parlance, the "standard serving size" section toward the top of any nutrition label refers to something called a "<a href="https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2012-title21-vol2/pdf/CFR-2012-title21-vol2-sec101-12.pdf">reference amount customarily consumed per eating occasion</a>," or the amount of a food that the average person would typically eat in one sitting.</p>
<p>The problem with this is that people tend to eat far more than the amount specified on the label. For reference, a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-a-serving-size-of-ice-cream-chips-granola-looks-like-2016-7">"standard serving size" of Oreos is two cookies</a>. That's right, two.</p>
<p>In an interview last year, Marion Nestle, a New York University professor of food science and author of the book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Food-Politics-Influences-Nutrition-California/dp/0520254031">"Food Politics,"</a> told Business Insider that this section is one of the biggest problems with current food labels, since it's "completely out of line with what people actually eat."</p>
<p>An FDA-sanctioned serving size of ice cream, Nestle pointed out, is just half a cup.</p>
<p>"Who sits down with a container of ice cream and measures out a half of a cup? No one. You're eating a cup or a bowl of ice cream," Nestle said.</p>
<p><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/530edd4469beddbd56049cc6-1120/fda-labels-both-ed.jpg" alt="fda nutrition label" data-mce-source="FDA" /></p>
<p>In response to these and other concerns, the FDA announced its first major overhaul of nutrition information in May, which goes into effect in 2018. But even the new designs, which increase the serving sizes and include a line for "added sugars," leave a lot of room for improvement, Nestle <a href="http://www.foodpolitics.com/tag/portion-sizes/">wrote on her "Food Politics" blog</a>.</p>
<h2>Scrapping calories, serving sizes, and fat for points</h2>
<p>Rather than trying to explain nutrition labels to its customers, Weight Watchers came up with its own system for easily evaluating the nutritional makeup of foods, called <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/04/nyregion/04watchers.html">the points system</a>.</p>
<p>Although its name and calculation system have changed several times since it was introduced in 1997, the gist remains the same. With the points system, every food you eat is <a href="https://www.weightwatchers.com/us/food">allotted a certain number of points</a> based on its sugar, fat, protein, and calorie content.</p>
<p>As part of the program, you're assigned a daily and a weekly points goal based on your current weight and how much you want to lose. Nutritious, filling foods get fewer points, while junk foods with empty calories get more. Fruits and veggies are zero-point foods.</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/576037b952bcd066018c91f6-1024/3697389202_259dcb5c6a_b.jpg" alt="salad healthy food hummus vegetables eating meal" data-mce-source="Flickr/halahmoon" data-link="https://flic.kr/p/6CJ5ZG" />"We're solving for the complexity of the nutrition label," <a href="http://www.med.upenn.edu/weight/gfoster.html">Gary Foster</a>, Weight Watchers' chief scientific officer and a professor of psychology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, told Business Insider.</p>
<p>Dozens of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/itrackbites-app-is-a-free-version-of-weight-watchers-2015-7">other weight loss apps</a> and programs now use various versions of points systems to try to help you lose weight. Unlike Weight Watchers, however, which has been around for decades and benefits from having thousands of participants, most of these programs haven't been rigorously studied.</p>
<h2>Does it work?</h2>
<p>The short answer is yes, Weight Watchers works.</p>
<p>Several comprehensive, large-scale studies suggest the program can help some people lose weight and keep it off. When researchers <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25844997">compare weight loss programs</a>, Weight Watchers is often <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24962106">among those recommended as effective</a>.</p>
<p>A randomized controlled trial funded by Weight Watchers and published in the American Journal of Medicine in 2013, for example, showed that people in the study who used Weight Watchers <a href="http://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(13)00672-4/abstract">lost more weight</a> than a comparison group of people who tried to shed pounds on their own.</p>
<p>For a 2008 study in the British Journal of Nutrition, researchers (including one from Weight Watchers) studied more than 600 Weight Watchers participants and followed up with them one year, two years, and five years after they completed the program. A year after they'd finished the program, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18042306">close to 60% were still within 5 pounds</a> of their goal weight. At two years, 45% were still in this category, and at five years, 37% were.</p>
<p>Still, research suggests that there's more to the program than just its points system. Its meetings, app, and other online tools appear to help people lose weight, too.</p>
<p>That Weight Watchers-sponsored study from 2013, for example, found that people who tried to count points on their own without making use of other parts of the program &mdash; like attending its meetings or using its app &mdash; didn't lose as much weight as people who participated fully, although that's certainly an outcome the company would have hoped for.</p>
<p>But if you're trying to lose weight and you've been struggling with nutrition labels, the key takeaway is this: You're not alone. Nutrition is complicated, and fortunately there are tools that can help. Evaluating foods with a points system is just one of them.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-a-serving-size-of-ice-cream-chips-granola-looks-like-2016-7" >Here's what a serving size of each of your favorite foods looks like</a></strong></p>
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Sat, 20 Aug 2016 03:03:00 -0400Will Heilpern
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/57b800a7dd0895c8168b463c-1200/gettyimages-489944876.jpg" alt="Katie Hopkins" data-mce-source="Ian Forsyth / Getty images"></p><p>One of the main things people find so unappealing about columnist and radio host Katie Hopkins is that she appears to have no sympathy for people who are suffering.</p>
<p>In October 2015, <a href="https://twitter.com/kthopkins/status/650264042448273408" target="_blank">she attacked overweight kids with the tweet</a>: "I refuse to speak to fat children." In March of the same year, <a href="https://twitter.com/KTHopkins/status/582134650568642562" target="_blank">she took on the mentally unwell</a>: "To be diagnosed as depressed is the holy grail of illnesses for many. The ultimate passport to self obsession. Get a grip people."</p>
<p>Worst of all, during the height of the refugee crisis last spring, Hopkins wrote in a <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/suncolumnists/katiehopkins/6414865/Katie-Hopkins-I-would-use-gunships-to-stop-migrants.html" target="_blank">now deleted</a> Sun column: "Show me pictures of coffins, show me bodies floating in water ... I still don't care."</p>
<p>Hopkins' words were deemed to have gone too far to be ignored. Her description of migrants as "cockroaches" was strongly redolent of Nazi propaganda, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/apr/24/katie-hopkins-cockroach-migrants-denounced-united-nations-human-rights-commissioner" target="_blank">according to </a><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/apr/24/katie-hopkins-cockroach-migrants-denounced-united-nations-human-rights-commissioner" target="_blank">the UN high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein</a>. Following the article, a <a href="https://www.change.org/p/the-sun-newspaper-remove-katie-hopkins-as-a-columnist" target="_blank">petition</a> to remove her as a Sun columnist gained more than 300,000 signatures. Hopkins has since been questioned by police on multiple occasions for investigations relating to hate crimes, she told Business Insider. She clearly takes the threat of arrest for her words seriously, but will not let it deter her. "I will end up in prison, I think," she said.</p>
<p>When I meet Hopkins at her favourite French restaurant in Covent Garden, her hair is still short. It's a reminder of the risky brain surgery she underwent in February to cure her nocturnal epilepsy, which has forced her to endure "four or five" seizures every night since she was 19.</p>
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Welcome to the scars I happily wear with pride <a href="https://t.co/9HDrYRKLMh">https://t.co/9HDrYRKLMh</a> <a href="https://t.co/y8o426OpEw">pic.twitter.com/y8o426OpEw</a> </p>— Katie Hopkins (@KTHopkins) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/703243003998158848">February 26, 2016</a>
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<p>The brain surgery was not an immediate success. Hopkins contracted meningitis, briefly lost the ability to walk downstairs, and experienced weakness in her left arm as a result of the operation. She has since had to re-learn these basic skills. "Pavements became a big deal," Hopkins said. "I was a toddler again."</p>
<p>However, the operation does appear to have cured Hopkins of epilepsy. "I'm not going to have any more fits," she said, with a determined glint in her eye. "This may be peak happiness."</p>
<p>Before the lesion was removed, Hopkins regularly woke up with a dislocated arm. In a three-year period this happened 42 times, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3458287/KATIE-HOPKINS-Today-surgeons-cut-brain-try-cure-epilepsy.html" target="_blank">she wrote in the Mail Online</a>. On each occasion, Hopkins ignored the pain and forced herself to run, "just to prove it hadn't got the better of me." For Hopkins, running is a sign of strength in the face of struggle. At lunch, she pairs bright pink trainers (in preparation for a run later that afternoon) with a formal necklace and floral top.</p>
<p><img class="float_left" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/57b800a7dd0895c8168b463d-1775/gettyimages-462862196.jpg" alt="Katie Hopkins" data-mce-source="Ian Gavan / Getty" data-link="http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/license/462862196">Hopkins' epilepsy made her childhood dream of being in the army impossible, and haunted her with violent fits. I asked her if she ever feels sorry for herself.</p>
<p>"I think some people will compete to be a victim and be the worst off ever, but then maybe someone near to you has died, or something similar," Hopkins said. "I've never had anything like that."</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"I feel awkward talking about [my epilepsy] actually," she said. "I don't identify with it at all."</span></p>
<p>Hopkins is certainly more comfortable on the attack, than when discussing her illness. Before we have even looked at the menus, she tried to pick a fight with me over <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/kevin-roberts-on-women-in-leadership-roles-2016-7" target="_blank">an interview by Business Insider's Lara O'Reilly with Kevin Roberts</a>, the executive chairman of the advertising agency Saatchi &amp; Saatchi. In the interview, Roberts said that the debate about gender diversity in the advertising industry was "over" and that he spent "no time" thinking about it. These comments ultimately led to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/saatchi-and-saatchi-chairman-kevin-roberts-has-resigned-2016-8" target="_blank">Roberts' resignation</a>.</p>
<p>Hopkins contended that the interview — which she said was written "elegantly and with excellence" — had "directly led to a brilliant man, an affable, lovely, commercial man, losing his job."</p>
<p>Hopkins has built a career as a professional contrarian. She first came under the spotlight as the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1553806/Apprentice-contestant-Katie-fires-Sir-Alan.html" target="_blank">first contestant on "The Apprentice" to 'fire' Sir Alan Sugar</a>. She rejected Sugar's offer of a place in the show's final, where she would have competed with just one other contestant for the prize job. The former business woman then entered "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!" and "Celebrity Big Brother," but she believes it was her appearances on breakfast television shows, like "This Morning," that made her famous.</p>
<p>"I guess the reason I got known, whatever that means, is just by doing sofa debates where I would take people out any which way I chose that day," Hopkins said. "'They are fat,' 'they're ugly,' 'they're ginger,' 'they're ridiculous.' I would just find a way to beat them with words."</p>
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Ginger babies. Like a baby. Just so much harder to love. </p>— Katie Hopkins (@KTHopkins) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/352958001998610433">July 5, 2013</a>
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<p>In one of the more memorable encounters, Hopkins faced Peaches Geldof, the TV personality daughter of Bob Geldof and Paula Yates. Geldof, aged 25 and a mother of two babies under two, was defending "<a href="http://attachmentparenting.co.uk/" target="_blank">Attachment Parenting</a>" (AP) — an approach to child rearing which encourages parents share a bed with their babies and feed them on demand.</p>
<p>"Really all it is is a return to instinctive mothering," <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HkR-3Eai1Q" target="_blank">Geldof said on ITV's "This Morning"</a> in November 2013. "It's just about loving your child."</p>
<p>While Geldof continued explaining her approach to parenting, Hopkins — with her red face turned to one side — grimaced, presumably contemplating how best to launch her attack.</p>
<p>"A.P. is just one step away from C.R.A.P., crap parenting," Hopkins soon jibed. As with almost all of the reality TV star's "debates," it quickly got personal. Geldof labelled Hopkins a "rent-a-gob" and Hopkins hit back at Geldof by accusing her of dropping her baby on the pavement. In the end, Geldof was considered to have won the argument. <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2502513/Peaches-Geldofs-joy-obliterates-Katie-Hopkins-VERY-heated-television-debate.html" target="_blank">"Peaches Geldof obliterates Katie Hopkins in VERY heated debate,"</a> read a Mail Online headline.</p>
<p>Five months later, on April 7, 2014, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-28438913" target="_blank">Geldof died after taking a fatal heroin overdose</a> while at home with her 11-month-old son, Phaedra, in Wrotham, Kent.</p>
<p>I asked Hopkins about the incident, hoping to elucidate some kind of emotional response. "As for an attachment parent that takes drugs with their kids and stuffed needles in their sweet jar?" she said. "If that’s attachment parenting, then go you."</p>
<p>Though later in the interview, Hopkins revealed that one of her only regrets is "not taking drugs when I was young — only because I think you should try stuff when you are young and I didn't try that."</p>
<p>After a while, even Hopkins tired of constant appearances on morning TV shows. "Making stupid people look stupid, that is not a job," Hopkins said. "It definitely gets boring. When I became rent-an-argument I got very bored really quickly, but that led to my Sun column and my Daily Mail contract."</p>
<p>Hopkins believes that she has now found a sense of purpose in her life: giving a voice to "the shut down majority," in Britain. "We have become useless at talking the truth," she said. It is the first time she has found meaning in her work, since being kicked out of the army at the age of 23, she said.</p>
<p>Many of Hopkins' deepest beliefs and values come from her year in the British army. Her strong sense of nationalism, lack of empathy, and relish of confrontation appear to come directly from her superiors at the Royal Military Academy of Sandhurst.</p>
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National Service would transform outlook &amp; opportunity for young people in the UK. Every kid should endure the bottom field <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CommandoSchool?src=hash">#CommandoSchool</a> </p>— Katie Hopkins (@KTHopkins) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/498928959074361344">August 11, 2014</a>
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<p>The right-wing commentator joined the military academy immediately after graduating from Exeter University. She signed a 35-year contract with the intelligence corps. "My plan was to become the first female general," Hopkins said. She spoke with glee about how she was once forced to "wrap sellotape around [her] hand to clean the carpet" during her first term at the military training academy.</p>
<p>When signing up, Hopkins knew that if she revealed that she had epilepsy, she would not be able to join the army. "I thought if I proved myself they'd let me stay," she said, "but I was wrong and that’s fine. That’s the rule. A rule is a rule."</p>
<p>Hopkins' 35-year contract with the British army was terminated, after she was discovered having an epileptic fit by superiors. She admitted it was "the worst thing to ever happen" to her. "I was 23 and I had to go back to live at home with my mum and dad," Hopkins said, as though the concept of someone living at home with their parents in their early 20s is shameful.</p>
<p>But Hopkins didn't "wallow" and quickly found a new path in life. In her mid-twenties, she "stole" her first husband, Damian McKinney, from another woman and moved to the US, where she became a business consultant at McKinney's company McKinney Rogers in New York City, for 10 years. One day in 2005, McKinney left Hopkins for his secretary.</p>
<p>"I have no grudge at all," Hopkins said about the end of her first marriage, "but at the time did I want to kill him? Absolutely. And I definitely [asked]: would it be cheaper to get a hitman than go to court?"</p>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/57b800a7dd0895c8168b463e-1712/ap_070705023102.jpg" alt="Katie Hopkins" data-mce-source="AP Photo/Nathan Strange" data-mce-caption="Katie Hopkins in 2007">Immediately, after the divorce in 2005, Hopkins returned to the UK. After getting a job as a brand consultant at the Met Office, she felt like she needed to do "something completely different," so, in 2006, she applied to be on the third series of "The Apprentice."</p>
<p>Hopkins returned to the Met Office immediately after quitting "The Apprentice" in 2007. There, she had an affair with a married colleague, Mark Cross. But after a photo of Hopkins and Cross having sex in a field appeared in the tabloids, Hopkins was fired by the Met Office for bringing the weather forecaster into disrepute, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-461361/Youre-fired-Katie.html" target="_blank">according to the Daily Mail</a>.</p>
<p>"I just decide who I like and I go find them," Hopkins said about her habit of having relationships with married men. "I'm calling Mark my last husband. I was calling him my second husband for a while and then my father told me to start calling him my last husband."</p>
<p>Despite some major changes in her life since being kicked out of Sandhurst — moving to America, getting married twice, and becoming a celebrity — Hopkins remains fiercely dedicated to the army, and deeply fond of her country. Hopkins' devotion to those she perceives as her own people contrasts with her total disregard for people who are not. I ask her where this nationalism comes from.</p>
<p>"I would call it patriotism," Hopkins said. "It’s now a short step from nationalistic to racist, thanks to Guardian readers."</p>
<p>"I look to stand up for my country and the people that live in it ... because I feel their voice is under-heard now," she said. "If you are a white, British male for generations, you don't stand a chance."</p>
<p>However, Hopkins' claim to be a hero of the white working class is dubious, given that she admits to being a snob. One of Hopkins' career-defining rants focused on names that she perceives to be working class, like "Charmaine, Chardonnay, and Tyler."</p>
<p>“A name, for me, is a short way of working out what class that child comes from,” <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/katie-hopkins-branded-an-insufferable-snob-after-this-morning-debate-on-childrens-names-8690468.html" target="_blank">Hopkins told "This Morning" in 2013</a>. She said that she decides from a child's name whether "I want my child to play with them."</p>
<p>Hopkins' inspiration for the tirade came from a brief period when she sent her three children — aged 12, 11, and seven — to an "awful and disgusting" state school near her large Georgian home in Devon. They now attend a private school "up the road" from their house. Hopkins spends most of her week in Devon with her kids and "lovely Mark," who has also left the Met Office and now works in a donkey sanctuary.</p>
<p>On Fridays, Hopkins travels to London, where she spends three days working on her two weekend radio shows for LBC (London Broadcasting Company). On the day after our interview, a Saturday, I tuned into "The Katie Hopkins Show" for the first time. Hopkins was discussing <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/how-to-prevent-british-schoolgirls-like-kadiza-sultana-from-being-radicalised-by-isis-2016-8" target="_blank">Kadiza Sultana</a>, an East London schoolgirl who was killed after leaving home to join ISIS in Syria. Hopkins seemed entirely in her element, while a Muslim caller told her she was "sick" and a "compulsive liar." She responded calmly, telling the caller to move away from personal attacks and focus on "rational" arguments.</p>
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Back tomorrow <a href="https://twitter.com/LBC">@LBC</a> at ten for The Katie Hopkins Show. There's twice as many of you listening...come join the fun. <a href="https://t.co/2wywJws3eU">pic.twitter.com/2wywJws3eU</a> </p>— Katie Hopkins (@KTHopkins) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/762042105950834690">August 6, 2016</a>
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<p>Being disliked is not something that worries Hopkins. In fact, it is something that she actively embraces. Nevertheless, there's a kinder side to the demagogue you discover when you spend time with her. At the start of the interview Hopkins made me a promise. She said that like other journalists, "you will find that when you leave, that you will fall deeply in love with me."</p>
<p>I can't say I fell in love with Katie Hopkins, but she came across as caring, even motherly in her own way, as she gave me career advice ("not the left-leaning, liberal media, BBC bollocks, darling"), and picked up the bill. I certainly enjoyed her company. When delivered without Twitter's 140 character constraint, her views seem more nuanced and just a shade more reasonable. Hopkins does not try to echo the views of London and she never will. She wants to speak for what she perceives to be the dispossessed silent majority, who don't like immigration or political correctness. And she's proud of that.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, there is something cold about Hopkins. She displays her trademark lack of empathy<span><strong> </strong>when she describes the day Britain reacted<strong> </strong>to the picture of three-year-old Syrian <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/heres-what-we-know-about-the-syrian-child-who-drowned-trying-to-escape-with-his-family-2015-9" target="_blank">Aylan Kurdi washed up on the beach</a> with an outpouring of sympathy as the "lamest day for this nation." I began to doubt if she was being authentic. I wondered if she treats those who she loves with the same detachment. Could she really be so unsympathetic to the human suffering of those close to her, despite having experienced so much pain herself? So I asked how she reacts if one of her children comes home from school upset, hurt, or depressed.</span></p>
<p>"If someone picked on them, or something?" Hopkins asked. "Then they'd need to get a grip on that."</p>
<p>"You wouldn't feel sorry for your kid if they came home after being bullied?" I ask.</p>
<p>"No, everyone's going to get picked on," Hopkins said. "Life is full of being picked on."</p>
<p>"But you've got to support them at that time, surely?" I ask.</p>
<p>"I'd support them to grow up," she said.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/katie-hopkins-talks-about-her-epilepsy-brain-surgery-and-parenting-2016-8#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/milo-yiannopoulos-defends-his-leslie-jones-tweets-2016-8">Milo Yiannopoulos defends his Leslie Jones tweets: All I did was crack a few jokes about a Hollywood star</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/brains-of-overweight-people-age-faster-2016-8Brains of overweight people look 10 years older than those of lean peoplehttp://www.businessinsider.com/brains-of-overweight-people-age-faster-2016-8
Sat, 13 Aug 2016 13:38:00 -0400Nicola Davis
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/57af5911ce38f238008b69b0-943/brain.jpg" alt="BRAIN guardian obese" data-mce-source="Photograph: Lisa Ronan" data-mce-caption="Comparison of grey matter (brown) and white matter (yellow) in sex-matched subjects A (56 years, BMI 19.5) and B (50 years, BMI 43.4)" /></p><p>The brains of people who are obese or overweight appear to have aged an extra 10 years compared to their lean peers from middle age onwards, brain scanning research has revealed.</p>
<p>The difference, scientists say, corresponds to a greater shrinkage in the volume of white matter, although they don&rsquo;t know the cause. It might be down to genes causing both brain-shrinking and obesity, or it could be that changes occurring in the brain lead to overeating. Either way, it does not appear to affect cognitive performance.</p>
<p>White matter is tissue, composed of nerve fibres, that aids communication between different regions of the brain. The volume of white matter in a human brain increases during youth and then decreases with age for both lean people and those who are overweight or obese.</p>
<p>But researchers have discovered that this shrinkage differs depending on a subject&rsquo;s BMI.</p>
<p>&ldquo;The overall message is that brains basically appear to be 10 years older if you are overweight or obese,&rdquo; said Lisa Ronan, first author of the study from the University of Cambridge.</p>
<p>Despite a higher BMI being linked to a smaller volume of white matter, it did not appear to have any link to mental prowess, with no difference seen between lean and overweight or obese participants when they were subjected to IQ tests. &ldquo;While cognition does change in the general population as you age, that is just perfectly normal; there were no differences in these changes between lean and overweight or obese [people],&rdquo; Ronan said.</p>
<p>While the new research involved only cognitively healthy individuals, Ronan adds that further work is needed to probe the influence of BMI-linked brain ageing and neurodegenerative conditions. &ldquo;This study raises the possibility that if you are overweight or obese you may be more susceptible to diseases [linked] to age-related decline such as dementia and Alzheimer&rsquo;s,&rdquo; she said.</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/52a1ff33ecad04f31d3c26c6-2400/running-jogging-beach-sunset.jpg" alt="running jogging beach sunset" data-mce-source="Michael Regan/Getty Images" />Writing in the journal Neurobiology of Aging, scientists from the University of Cambridge and Yale University describe how they sought to unpick links between obesity and brain structure by analysing MRI scans from 473 individuals aged between 20 and 87.</p>
<p>The researchers split the participants into two categories based on their BMI, with 246 classified as lean and 227 as overweight or obese. They then analysed the brain scans for the two groups, taking into account sex and various self-reported health issues such as high blood pressure and diabetes, to create a computer model that explored how the volume of white matter changed with age among the participants.</p>
<p>When the researchers looked at those over the age of 37, the age at which the volume of white matter starts to decrease, they discovered those who were overweight or obese had a smaller volume of white matterthan lean subjects. This difference in white matter volume was greatest around the age of 40 and then stabilised, corresponding to an increase in brain age of around a decade compared to lean participants.</p>
<p>But, Ronan warns, it is not yet clear whether an increased BMI is driving the effect. &ldquo;It could be that the genes that are responsible for obesity could also be responsible for smaller brains, or it could be that if you have a brain change that could lead to overeating,&rdquo; she said.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Everybody understands the impact of obesity on your body, but on your brain we are at a loss really, we don&rsquo;t understand yet,&rdquo; she added. &ldquo;This is part of the puzzle.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Claudia Metzler-Baddeley, from Cardiff University&rsquo;s Brain Research Imaging Centre, said the research backs up previous suggestions that obesity and brain structure are linked. But, she added, &ldquo;It is cross-sectional study - so it is not following people up over time. That is always a limiting factor. It doesn&rsquo;t allow you to make any inferences about cause and effect.&rdquo; What&rsquo;s more, she says, self-reports of health and lifestyle factors are prone to inaccuracies, while the use of BMI also has drawbacks. &ldquo;You can have a very high BMI just simply because of high muscle mass,&rdquo; she said.</p>
<p>Dr James Pickett, head of research at Alzheimer&rsquo;s Society, said: &ldquo;The relationship between obesity and dementia is complex and studies on the subject have shown contradictory results. While this new research indicates that obesity may have an impact on how the brain ages, it does not show a link between obesity and increased risk of memory and thinking problems.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;The jury is still out regarding any potential links between obesity and risk of memory loss and dementia &ndash; but we do know that what is good for the heart is also good for the head. Evidence shows that the best ways to reduce your risk of dementia include following a healthy diet, taking plenty of exercise and stopping smoking.&rdquo;</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/a-harvard-student-describes-her-typical-week-2016-8" >A Harvard student describes her typical week</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/brains-of-overweight-people-age-faster-2016-8#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/mars-travel-humans-space-robots-2016-12">A space engineer explains why humans will never go past Mars</a></p>